I'm going to guess at this, since I really don't use the DVD drive in my HTPC. I actually rip on my normal computer using DVD Decryper and then encode using AutoGK (75% quality).
To watch DVD content directly from the DVD within Meedio or another frontend, I believe you'd have to install software similar to SlySoft AnyDVD. That will remove the protection and allow other software to access the content. Meedio has a menu module called "Play DVD" that can play from the DVD drive assuming it's not protected. It uses whatever default player you have set up in Meedio to display the content. I believe WindowsMCE would work similarily. Can't say for certain about MythTV.
I know many people dump the DVD ISO to a hard drive and then use a combination of AnyDVD, Meedio, and Daemon-Tools to play them. To do that, you'd also have to set up the PlayMee plugin within Meedio, which makes it all pretty simple and seamless.
For a while I was doing my movies that way, but I was using the PlayMee plugin to launch ZoomPlayer instead of using Meedio's internal player. Then I was using ffdshow to upscale the DVD to HDTV quality. I run at 1000x776 resolution (the missing 80 lines account for overscan). It looked quite good, but puts a huge load on the processor. I believe Meedio's internal player can now make use of ffdshow as well.
A cheap alternative to all of this is using XBox Media Center and an XBOX with a mod chip. It's not nearly as flexible or well polished, but you can hack up the code pretty well to do most things. It's just the cost of a mod chipped XBox, then (~ $400. $200 if you mod it yourself).
Almost forgot. Be careful with the case and video card. The case won't allow full height video cards... the ones that extend past the bracket. You might want to consider a Lian-Li case instead. It's slightly more expensive, but will hold full height cards and twice as many hard drives. My friend got this one, and it looks decent. They also make it in silver.
That's it, other than a bunch of hard drives. If you can afford it, I'd suggest something like this for a storage solution, since I've already had 1 drive go bad. It's a pain reloading everything onto it, especially since I'm encoding everything to xvid to save on hard drive space (1.5GB/movie with AC3 sound vs 5-9GB/movie).
I'm saving up for a HD capture card, which will add $150-$200 to the total price. Right now I just download everything from Usenet (usenetserver.com alt.binaries.tv) at 500k/s. The nice thing about a setup like this is you can start really simple and add features and parts as you go. Ultimately I'll get a parity drive system, dual HDTV cards, a faster processor, and more hard drive space, but for now this is plenty. It's used at least once a day and I've never had any major issues with it.
Keep in mind it's a hobby, though, not just a product. It will take time to get up and running the way you want.
You mean you've never paid for software before? Sure, there's plenty of free software out there, but nothing that I liked as much as Meedio. I tried out various software and decided on the one I liked most, regardless of cost. I got it on sale for $20, so it's negligible compared to the rest of the cost of the project.
Re:Cases? That's the innovation this year?
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The Year of the HTPC
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· Score: 3, Interesting
So build your HTPC in a normal case and put it in another room. Get a RF remote and run the wires to your TV and receiver through the wall. Since most HTPC software has really good OSD messaging, you really don't need it in the room for any reason.
I'm remodeling my basement right now and will be building a second HTPC to be located in the laundry room behind my home theater. It makes sense since the projector will be back there too. Since I'll insulate that wall, I won't ever hear the HTPC and I won't ever see it.
My current HTPC is in a Coolermaster case. It looks really nice with the rest of my home theater equipment, and I've actually gotten a few compliments just on the case. It was only $100, so it's around the cost of any other well made case.
I'm not sure your point. I've not used MythTV, but people seem pretty happy with it. I'm using Meedio, which works exactly as advertised. Once their Meedio TV software can handle more HDTV cards, I'll be looking at getting that as well. It's flexible software with an open interface that allows anyone to write plugins for it (in a variety of languages). Sure, it runs on Windows, but if you're comfortable enough running linux, you should be comfortable enough messing around with MythTV.
There's a number of options for frontend and OS. There's obviously MythTV on Linux, Windows Media Center on Windows XP, etc. I'm personally running Meedio on Windows XP.
Before people start talking about how a Tivo and DVD player will do all the same stuff, keep in mind that there's far more applications for a HTPC. There's plugins to check weather, play games (emulation), look at traffic reports, get sports scores and highlights, and much more.
I built my HTPC for around $400 plus hard drives (I'm around 1.5TB, which holds all the TV shows I want and the movies that I own). I just built one for a friend for $1000 which included 600GB of hard drive space and 2 wireless controllers (Logitech Rumblepad 2's work great for controlling the system and playing most emulator games). The really cool part is you can upscale movies if you want. I'd like to see someone get a Tivo (+ lifetime subscription) and DVD player capable of upscaling for $1000, completely ignoring the fact that it can do so many other things.
People like Pat Robertson give Christianity a bad name. The same is true for terrorists and extremists (the Iranian leader) with Islam.
I think it's pretty obvious I'm not judging Islam by the extremists. By saying that extremists give Islam a bad name, I'm saying that they're not representative of most Muslims, just like Pat Robertson isn't representative of most Christians. You need to work on your reading comprehension.
Perhaps you are right. I never really thought of it that way. The reason I excluded miracles is because I believe that God has used them in the past as a way to show without a doubt that whatever is going on is from him.
Think about this with the assumption that God does exist and that Biblical miracles were actually performed. Many still cannot be explained by science 2000 years later. Imagine for a second if we're still around 10,000 years from now and there's still no way to explain the miracles with science. The miracles become that much more impressive. However, if someone is able to transmutate matter to turn water into wine, then the miracle can be replicated and seems less impressive (even considering it would have happened 2000+ years earlier).
I just think that if God performed miracles, he'd do so that they had longevity in addition to an immediate awe factor.
You're taking the same approach as the ID people. You're saying that since you don't believe in something, that nobody else should either. The ID people are trying to force religion in a setting the requires only science. You're trying to force science in a setting that allows for more than just science.
Your question about how God came to be is fundamentally flawed as a result. You're trying to apply science to a question that most Christians use faith to explain: that God has always existed. I would suggest reading Arthur C. Clark's Rama series as a good example of how science and God can co-exist. It's also very entertaining to boot.
Perhaps the best way to handle this entire argument, since you're obviously close-minded on the whole thing, is to accept that other people have different beliefs than you.
As someone who believes in creationism and hard science, I think both sides of the argument are taking the issue as black and white instead of realizing if a higher being really did create everything, then there's far more gray area involved.
The people on the science side should continue researching as they have in the past. They're doing great research that can teach us about a number of things, and that research can be used in future technology. Those that don't believe there's a God can continue not believing it.
The people on the ID side should realize that if God did create everything, he's probably smart enough to design things in such a way that it can be explained through science as well. My personal belief is that everything, with the exclusion of miracles, can be explained through science, and that God did this so that people really can have a choice between believing and not believing. In any case, it shouldn't be an issue since the Bible doesn't teach us to argue stuff like this, it teaches us moral lessons like loving one another. People like Pat Robertson give Christianity a bad name. The same is true for terrorists and extremists (the Iranian leader) with Islam.
As for teaching it in school, I don't believe it's right to do so. ID should be taught in Sunday School as it always has been. Christians should try using science to explain their faith, not try to argue that they're opposites. There have been many great scientists in history that have also been religious. They don't have to be mutually exclusive.
In the end it's up to each person to decide what they want to believe, but trying to force faith-based arguments into the classroom is the same as trying to force evolution into church.
I know in the past you've been hesitant to talk about Slashdot ON Slashdot for whatever reasons, but I think it's a great idea. It's refreshing to read people's comments on certain issues here, as well as their solution to those problems. Thank you for handling it this way.
After reading through all the posts, I really like the idea of story moderation. Once the story hits a certain level of moderation, the submittor's site link is removed. Perhaps you could display this "story submission karma" when approving submissions as well, so you can be more likely to choose a story from someone with high story submission karma (read: links to interesting articles, well-written submissions with few spelling/grammatical errors, etc).
Setting the nofollow attribute is also a good idea, is a simple solution, and should help at least a little bit.
Anyway, I've used a number of different operating systems and I've realized something. Computer security isn't so much the operating system you select, it's how diligent you are in keeping it secure. If you keep the system patched, behind a decent firewall, are careful with the software you run, and don't use the root/Administrator account for normal usage, you'll probably not have any issues with your computer. Granted, there are plenty of examples otherwise, but I'm referring to the standard user or sysadmin.
The problem comes in for users that don't understand that they need to keep their system protected more than it is out of the box. Some linux distros and Windows get it right by having automatic updates (if you need to disable these, you can easily enough).
Overall, there ARE good things and bad things about each operating system, but not much matters if the user isn't going to take some type of responsibility to keep their own system updated and protected.
It's pretty much the same thing in the debate. Right now I'm not required to show any form of ID before I vote. I just give them my name and they assume I'm telling them the truth. The reason it has turned into a voter ID card debate is that the Democrats feel that requiring an ID will exclude the poor from voting (most have a driver's license to buy booze anyway). The Republicans countered with a very solid plan for the state to pay for ID cards for individuals that can't afford them, removing the burden for the poor. Both sides are giving extreme examples, but the fact remains that they SHOULD be doing some verification that the person is who they say they are.
4 people have been charged with double voting, but there were far more discrepancies than those 4. There were votes from addresses that don't exist, from addresses that aren't residential, and votes from people that no longer live in those districts. A voter ID would prevent many of those. There were a handful of local elections that were decided by fewer than 20 votes. Voter verification might not have affected the presidential race, but it would have definitely affected those local races.
Michael Pratt, son of former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt, and Supreme Solar Allah, the son of state Sen. Gwen Moore were investigated for slashing the tires of GOP vans on election day. Although you might not consider them "leading Milwaukee Democrats" their parents sure are.
Many companies out there wouldn't even know if their tapes had been misplaced or lost. At 3 companies I've worked for, we've had tapes lying around in managers' offices and server rooms, many that contain information that could be used for identity theft.
Marriott has handled this correctly and deserves some credit for doing so. At least they're not trying to cover it up like some companies would.
No, actually you just created a huge support problem, not to mention that some people's jobs actually involves installing new software. And it can be worked around and disabled easily enough as well.
Not nearly the support problem you have when users install spyware and infect their systems with viruses. It's easy to push out new software to the desktop, and people who actually install software can be given the rights to do so. If done properly, it's VERY difficult to bypass.
Someone else posted the obvious solution of blocking all the ports at the firewall. That's simple enough, but stupid people can still download software via the web and mess things up.
The simplest solution is to lock down the user's rights. Just prevent them from installing any software and don't put P2P or IM clients on their systems. Problem solved. If you really need them to be able to use IM, run it via MSN IM through your Exchange server (I'm sure there's OSS alternatives to do the same thing). That way you can give all your employees IM access to each other but not the outside world.
Not to mention the fact that restricting installation rights on workstations is smart for a number of other reasons.
The examples given are from different companies and design teams, so it's hard to generalize them. Overall, however, popular Windows software tends to be made by companies who put a lot of thought into the naming of their product, since it will help determine how popular that product is. Many linux programming teams either go too general or try getting clever with the name ("Which greek god relates to what this program is doing?").
The problem with getting too clever is that without a strong advertising push or word-of-mouth push (Firefox), people really don't know what your program does. The problem with going too generic is that the program isn't memorable.
There's a few programs that get it right by choosing a name that's both descriptive and clever (Photoshop, Winamp, OpenOffice, etc). Point is, either get a big ad budget or take some extra time choosing a name. Of course, if your target audience isn't the general public (read: ethereal), then it doesn't really matter since computer experts will recognize software based on how good it is.
Can't they just refuse him on the property and have him arrested for trespassing if he comes anyway? He would then have to file a complaint with the SEC, which would most likely side with the company given Thompson's purpose in wanting to attend.
They could also allow him in, and then file a restraining order if he disrupts the meeting. I belive the restraining order law would trump the SEC rules.
I take it you haven't tried the IE7 beta. It's quite a bit better than the previous versions of IE and should be considerably better by the time Longhorn comes out. Even though IE6 has a lot of security issues, saying that it's a barely working hack shows you're not even taking an objective look at the situation. Even though I use Firefox for nearly everything, I can at least admit that IE has improved a lot over the years.
MS has been making great strides in increasing security and stability lately, and I expect it will carry over to IE7. Not to mention that Longhorn itself will be quite a bit more stable and secure, and should provide a better environment for IE to run in. A lot of issues were caused by IE and Windows together, not separately, as shown by the lack of problems that IE had on Macs. Make Windows better and IE follows suit.
Why would MS purchase Opera when they have a relatively stable web browser of their own for free? They'll spend far less than $400M fixing issues and adding features to IE, and the best part for them is that they're already familiar with it and are used to working with it.
If MS were to do anything with a new browser, they'd be smart to branch Firefox and develop an open source version that can do the things they want it to do (ActiveX). Or they could just continue working on IE7, which will probably ship with Longhorn, and have a browser they made, that they can control, that works exactly how they want, at a fraction of the cost of purchasing Opera, and will likely be just as stable and secure with the enhancements they're making in Longhorn.
The Salvation Army might be another "hateful homophobic right wing church", but you come across as having tunnel vision.
I'm sure you've seen the Philly NAACP president's comments about Donovan McNabb, and any reasonable person would say the Philly president was not only wrong, but his comments bordered on racist remarks themselves. Does that mean the NAACP as a whole is the same way? Of course not.
When I lived in downtown Milwaukee, the Rainbow Summer parade went right in front of my apartment. Do I think that all gays and lesbians dress in leather S&M gear, crossdress, or prance about like they're forest fairies (that's the fantasy version of fairies, not the derogatory term)? Of course not.
You have proof (not an editorial article in a gay/lesbian magazine, actual PROOF) that the SA offered support for Bush's faith-based initiative solely in exchange for Bush gutting anti-discrimination laws? Bush's faith-based initiative seems like something the SA would support even without under the table agreements. Your language in your second paragraph is also loaded. You say they defend their "discrimination". I'd be willing to bet they don't consider what they're doing to be discrimination, and therefore it's up to the courts to decide, which they haven't done yet (for that lone instance you provided the link to). If you're referring to some other phantom behavior by the SA, you haven't referred to it in any way other than vague references to some sort of official stance against homosexuality.
Back to the real issue that I'm arguing with you: If someone chooses to believe that homosexuality is wrong, does that make their good deeds any less helpful? You seem to think it does. It's the same problem that leads to discrimination in the first place... people including or excluding other people based on the person's race, sex, or sexual preference. As a result, you're becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution.
The solution? It's simple... to try looking past differences in each other and treat people based on the good deeds (or bad deeds in some instances) that they do. You don't want to do it, since you seem content generalizing an organization (and as a result generalizing all of its employees and volunteers) and being disgruntled about something that didn't even affect you personally.
As for your snide remark about homosexuality not being a choice, that's your opinion. I have mine. Doesn't mean our other opinions are an less viable... it's just that we disagree on one thing. One thing that honestly doesn't make much of a difference to most people. I don't care if you decided to be gay or were born that way. It doesn't change anything about the way I treat the homosexual friends I have, so what's the big deal.
I'll give you one more example to help you understand the point I'm trying to make. I've known quite a few muslims through various jobs and organizations I've been in. Just because there are a small number of extremists that execute suicide bombings and other terrorist activities, does that mean that muslims are bad people? If you say yes, then you can start hanging out with those few extreme fundamentalist Christians (the one that give Christianity a bad name), since that's what they said after 9/11. Most muslim leaders don't stand up to terrorists, which is unfortunate, but it allows a perfect parallel to the situation with the Salvation Army. Just because there's a handful of bad people in the organization, and just because the organization as a whole doesn't have the same beliefs as you, does not mean that the organization is any less helpful to society.
They're not disputing it. Try reading it again. They list three questions/inconsistencies that they felt were unanswered:
Why would he continue supported eXeem if he was under copyright enforcement actions?
Why would he continue working with ANY P2P development?
Although the Suprnova.org servers were raided in November, the site continued to function until December.
They go on to say: A year later, answers for the curious are finally available.... Considering the magnitude of the situation Sloncek faced, he did what was best for him. No on else from the BitTorrent community was going to help him, and he knew that. Whether he is telling the truth is irrelevant.
That's not disputing him. That's saying, "we had questions before, but he answered them sufficiently, and it doesn't really matter even if he weren't telling the truth."
It seems like you're more concerned with whether or not people have a problem with gays and lesbians than whether or not people try helping the poor. That's fine, since that's how your value system is set up, but don't expect everyone else to feel the same way.
In all of your posts, you provided one instance of an SA worked discriminating and the organization not doing anything about it. Although that incident is unfortunate, it doesn't change the fact that the organization as a whole does a lot of good work.
Now if they had a history (read: multiple events) of discrimination, then I might be more likely to agree with you. Your reaction is just as bad as the Christian Coalition wanting to boycott Ford for publishing in a gay magazine. It all comes down to people blowing things out of proportion instead of focusing on what really matters.
Oh, and before you come up with some way that I'm discriminating and therefore evil, you should know that my wife's uncle is gay. He's a great guy and it's his decision to make.
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I'm going to guess at this, since I really don't use the DVD drive in my HTPC. I actually rip on my normal computer using DVD Decryper and then encode using AutoGK (75% quality).
To watch DVD content directly from the DVD within Meedio or another frontend, I believe you'd have to install software similar to SlySoft AnyDVD. That will remove the protection and allow other software to access the content. Meedio has a menu module called "Play DVD" that can play from the DVD drive assuming it's not protected. It uses whatever default player you have set up in Meedio to display the content. I believe WindowsMCE would work similarily. Can't say for certain about MythTV.
I know many people dump the DVD ISO to a hard drive and then use a combination of AnyDVD, Meedio, and Daemon-Tools to play them. To do that, you'd also have to set up the PlayMee plugin within Meedio, which makes it all pretty simple and seamless.
For a while I was doing my movies that way, but I was using the PlayMee plugin to launch ZoomPlayer instead of using Meedio's internal player. Then I was using ffdshow to upscale the DVD to HDTV quality. I run at 1000x776 resolution (the missing 80 lines account for overscan). It looked quite good, but puts a huge load on the processor. I believe Meedio's internal player can now make use of ffdshow as well.
A cheap alternative to all of this is using XBox Media Center and an XBOX with a mod chip. It's not nearly as flexible or well polished, but you can hack up the code pretty well to do most things. It's just the cost of a mod chipped XBox, then (~ $400. $200 if you mod it yourself).
Almost forgot. Be careful with the case and video card. The case won't allow full height video cards... the ones that extend past the bracket. You might want to consider a Lian-Li case instead. It's slightly more expensive, but will hold full height cards and twice as many hard drives. My friend got this one, and it looks decent. They also make it in silver.
That's it, other than a bunch of hard drives. If you can afford it, I'd suggest something like this for a storage solution, since I've already had 1 drive go bad. It's a pain reloading everything onto it, especially since I'm encoding everything to xvid to save on hard drive space (1.5GB/movie with AC3 sound vs 5-9GB/movie).
I'm saving up for a HD capture card, which will add $150-$200 to the total price. Right now I just download everything from Usenet (usenetserver.com alt.binaries.tv) at 500k/s. The nice thing about a setup like this is you can start really simple and add features and parts as you go. Ultimately I'll get a parity drive system, dual HDTV cards, a faster processor, and more hard drive space, but for now this is plenty. It's used at least once a day and I've never had any major issues with it.
Keep in mind it's a hobby, though, not just a product. It will take time to get up and running the way you want.
You mean you've never paid for software before? Sure, there's plenty of free software out there, but nothing that I liked as much as Meedio. I tried out various software and decided on the one I liked most, regardless of cost. I got it on sale for $20, so it's negligible compared to the rest of the cost of the project.
So build your HTPC in a normal case and put it in another room. Get a RF remote and run the wires to your TV and receiver through the wall. Since most HTPC software has really good OSD messaging, you really don't need it in the room for any reason.
I'm remodeling my basement right now and will be building a second HTPC to be located in the laundry room behind my home theater. It makes sense since the projector will be back there too. Since I'll insulate that wall, I won't ever hear the HTPC and I won't ever see it.
My current HTPC is in a Coolermaster case. It looks really nice with the rest of my home theater equipment, and I've actually gotten a few compliments just on the case. It was only $100, so it's around the cost of any other well made case.
I'm not sure your point. I've not used MythTV, but people seem pretty happy with it. I'm using Meedio, which works exactly as advertised. Once their Meedio TV software can handle more HDTV cards, I'll be looking at getting that as well. It's flexible software with an open interface that allows anyone to write plugins for it (in a variety of languages). Sure, it runs on Windows, but if you're comfortable enough running linux, you should be comfortable enough messing around with MythTV.
There's a number of options for frontend and OS. There's obviously MythTV on Linux, Windows Media Center on Windows XP, etc. I'm personally running Meedio on Windows XP.
Before people start talking about how a Tivo and DVD player will do all the same stuff, keep in mind that there's far more applications for a HTPC. There's plugins to check weather, play games (emulation), look at traffic reports, get sports scores and highlights, and much more.
I built my HTPC for around $400 plus hard drives (I'm around 1.5TB, which holds all the TV shows I want and the movies that I own). I just built one for a friend for $1000 which included 600GB of hard drive space and 2 wireless controllers (Logitech Rumblepad 2's work great for controlling the system and playing most emulator games). The really cool part is you can upscale movies if you want. I'd like to see someone get a Tivo (+ lifetime subscription) and DVD player capable of upscaling for $1000, completely ignoring the fact that it can do so many other things.
I think it's pretty obvious I'm not judging Islam by the extremists. By saying that extremists give Islam a bad name, I'm saying that they're not representative of most Muslims, just like Pat Robertson isn't representative of most Christians. You need to work on your reading comprehension.
Perhaps you are right. I never really thought of it that way. The reason I excluded miracles is because I believe that God has used them in the past as a way to show without a doubt that whatever is going on is from him.
Think about this with the assumption that God does exist and that Biblical miracles were actually performed. Many still cannot be explained by science 2000 years later. Imagine for a second if we're still around 10,000 years from now and there's still no way to explain the miracles with science. The miracles become that much more impressive. However, if someone is able to transmutate matter to turn water into wine, then the miracle can be replicated and seems less impressive (even considering it would have happened 2000+ years earlier).
I just think that if God performed miracles, he'd do so that they had longevity in addition to an immediate awe factor.
You're taking the same approach as the ID people. You're saying that since you don't believe in something, that nobody else should either. The ID people are trying to force religion in a setting the requires only science. You're trying to force science in a setting that allows for more than just science.
Your question about how God came to be is fundamentally flawed as a result. You're trying to apply science to a question that most Christians use faith to explain: that God has always existed. I would suggest reading Arthur C. Clark's Rama series as a good example of how science and God can co-exist. It's also very entertaining to boot.
Perhaps the best way to handle this entire argument, since you're obviously close-minded on the whole thing, is to accept that other people have different beliefs than you.
As someone who believes in creationism and hard science, I think both sides of the argument are taking the issue as black and white instead of realizing if a higher being really did create everything, then there's far more gray area involved.
The people on the science side should continue researching as they have in the past. They're doing great research that can teach us about a number of things, and that research can be used in future technology. Those that don't believe there's a God can continue not believing it.
The people on the ID side should realize that if God did create everything, he's probably smart enough to design things in such a way that it can be explained through science as well. My personal belief is that everything, with the exclusion of miracles, can be explained through science, and that God did this so that people really can have a choice between believing and not believing. In any case, it shouldn't be an issue since the Bible doesn't teach us to argue stuff like this, it teaches us moral lessons like loving one another. People like Pat Robertson give Christianity a bad name. The same is true for terrorists and extremists (the Iranian leader) with Islam.
As for teaching it in school, I don't believe it's right to do so. ID should be taught in Sunday School as it always has been. Christians should try using science to explain their faith, not try to argue that they're opposites. There have been many great scientists in history that have also been religious. They don't have to be mutually exclusive.
In the end it's up to each person to decide what they want to believe, but trying to force faith-based arguments into the classroom is the same as trying to force evolution into church.
I know in the past you've been hesitant to talk about Slashdot ON Slashdot for whatever reasons, but I think it's a great idea. It's refreshing to read people's comments on certain issues here, as well as their solution to those problems. Thank you for handling it this way.
After reading through all the posts, I really like the idea of story moderation. Once the story hits a certain level of moderation, the submittor's site link is removed. Perhaps you could display this "story submission karma" when approving submissions as well, so you can be more likely to choose a story from someone with high story submission karma (read: links to interesting articles, well-written submissions with few spelling/grammatical errors, etc).
Setting the nofollow attribute is also a good idea, is a simple solution, and should help at least a little bit.
Once again, thanks for this discussion.
Volatile is an understatement.
Anyway, I've used a number of different operating systems and I've realized something. Computer security isn't so much the operating system you select, it's how diligent you are in keeping it secure. If you keep the system patched, behind a decent firewall, are careful with the software you run, and don't use the root/Administrator account for normal usage, you'll probably not have any issues with your computer. Granted, there are plenty of examples otherwise, but I'm referring to the standard user or sysadmin.
The problem comes in for users that don't understand that they need to keep their system protected more than it is out of the box. Some linux distros and Windows get it right by having automatic updates (if you need to disable these, you can easily enough).
Overall, there ARE good things and bad things about each operating system, but not much matters if the user isn't going to take some type of responsibility to keep their own system updated and protected.
Many companies out there wouldn't even know if their tapes had been misplaced or lost. At 3 companies I've worked for, we've had tapes lying around in managers' offices and server rooms, many that contain information that could be used for identity theft.
Marriott has handled this correctly and deserves some credit for doing so. At least they're not trying to cover it up like some companies would.
Not nearly the support problem you have when users install spyware and infect their systems with viruses. It's easy to push out new software to the desktop, and people who actually install software can be given the rights to do so. If done properly, it's VERY difficult to bypass.
Someone else posted the obvious solution of blocking all the ports at the firewall. That's simple enough, but stupid people can still download software via the web and mess things up.
The simplest solution is to lock down the user's rights. Just prevent them from installing any software and don't put P2P or IM clients on their systems. Problem solved. If you really need them to be able to use IM, run it via MSN IM through your Exchange server (I'm sure there's OSS alternatives to do the same thing). That way you can give all your employees IM access to each other but not the outside world.
Not to mention the fact that restricting installation rights on workstations is smart for a number of other reasons.
The examples given are from different companies and design teams, so it's hard to generalize them. Overall, however, popular Windows software tends to be made by companies who put a lot of thought into the naming of their product, since it will help determine how popular that product is. Many linux programming teams either go too general or try getting clever with the name ("Which greek god relates to what this program is doing?").
The problem with getting too clever is that without a strong advertising push or word-of-mouth push (Firefox), people really don't know what your program does. The problem with going too generic is that the program isn't memorable.
There's a few programs that get it right by choosing a name that's both descriptive and clever (Photoshop, Winamp, OpenOffice, etc). Point is, either get a big ad budget or take some extra time choosing a name. Of course, if your target audience isn't the general public (read: ethereal), then it doesn't really matter since computer experts will recognize software based on how good it is.
Can't they just refuse him on the property and have him arrested for trespassing if he comes anyway? He would then have to file a complaint with the SEC, which would most likely side with the company given Thompson's purpose in wanting to attend.
They could also allow him in, and then file a restraining order if he disrupts the meeting. I belive the restraining order law would trump the SEC rules.
I take it you haven't tried the IE7 beta. It's quite a bit better than the previous versions of IE and should be considerably better by the time Longhorn comes out. Even though IE6 has a lot of security issues, saying that it's a barely working hack shows you're not even taking an objective look at the situation. Even though I use Firefox for nearly everything, I can at least admit that IE has improved a lot over the years.
MS has been making great strides in increasing security and stability lately, and I expect it will carry over to IE7. Not to mention that Longhorn itself will be quite a bit more stable and secure, and should provide a better environment for IE to run in. A lot of issues were caused by IE and Windows together, not separately, as shown by the lack of problems that IE had on Macs. Make Windows better and IE follows suit.
Dvorak is an idiot.
Why would MS purchase Opera when they have a relatively stable web browser of their own for free? They'll spend far less than $400M fixing issues and adding features to IE, and the best part for them is that they're already familiar with it and are used to working with it.
If MS were to do anything with a new browser, they'd be smart to branch Firefox and develop an open source version that can do the things they want it to do (ActiveX). Or they could just continue working on IE7, which will probably ship with Longhorn, and have a browser they made, that they can control, that works exactly how they want, at a fraction of the cost of purchasing Opera, and will likely be just as stable and secure with the enhancements they're making in Longhorn.
Yeah Dvorak... you hit this on the head.
The Salvation Army might be another "hateful homophobic right wing church", but you come across as having tunnel vision.
I'm sure you've seen the Philly NAACP president's comments about Donovan McNabb, and any reasonable person would say the Philly president was not only wrong, but his comments bordered on racist remarks themselves. Does that mean the NAACP as a whole is the same way? Of course not.
When I lived in downtown Milwaukee, the Rainbow Summer parade went right in front of my apartment. Do I think that all gays and lesbians dress in leather S&M gear, crossdress, or prance about like they're forest fairies (that's the fantasy version of fairies, not the derogatory term)? Of course not.
You have proof (not an editorial article in a gay/lesbian magazine, actual PROOF) that the SA offered support for Bush's faith-based initiative solely in exchange for Bush gutting anti-discrimination laws? Bush's faith-based initiative seems like something the SA would support even without under the table agreements. Your language in your second paragraph is also loaded. You say they defend their "discrimination". I'd be willing to bet they don't consider what they're doing to be discrimination, and therefore it's up to the courts to decide, which they haven't done yet (for that lone instance you provided the link to). If you're referring to some other phantom behavior by the SA, you haven't referred to it in any way other than vague references to some sort of official stance against homosexuality.
Back to the real issue that I'm arguing with you:
If someone chooses to believe that homosexuality is wrong, does that make their good deeds any less helpful? You seem to think it does. It's the same problem that leads to discrimination in the first place... people including or excluding other people based on the person's race, sex, or sexual preference. As a result, you're becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution.
The solution? It's simple... to try looking past differences in each other and treat people based on the good deeds (or bad deeds in some instances) that they do. You don't want to do it, since you seem content generalizing an organization (and as a result generalizing all of its employees and volunteers) and being disgruntled about something that didn't even affect you personally.
As for your snide remark about homosexuality not being a choice, that's your opinion. I have mine. Doesn't mean our other opinions are an less viable... it's just that we disagree on one thing. One thing that honestly doesn't make much of a difference to most people. I don't care if you decided to be gay or were born that way. It doesn't change anything about the way I treat the homosexual friends I have, so what's the big deal.
I'll give you one more example to help you understand the point I'm trying to make. I've known quite a few muslims through various jobs and organizations I've been in. Just because there are a small number of extremists that execute suicide bombings and other terrorist activities, does that mean that muslims are bad people? If you say yes, then you can start hanging out with those few extreme fundamentalist Christians (the one that give Christianity a bad name), since that's what they said after 9/11. Most muslim leaders don't stand up to terrorists, which is unfortunate, but it allows a perfect parallel to the situation with the Salvation Army. Just because there's a handful of bad people in the organization, and just because the organization as a whole doesn't have the same beliefs as you, does not mean that the organization is any less helpful to society.
Are you an idiot? I was summarizing the text from the article he linked to. You, just like the OP, need to RTFA before posting.
They go on to say:
A year later, answers for the curious are finally available.
That's not disputing him. That's saying, "we had questions before, but he answered them sufficiently, and it doesn't really matter even if he weren't telling the truth."
Yay.
It seems like you're more concerned with whether or not people have a problem with gays and lesbians than whether or not people try helping the poor. That's fine, since that's how your value system is set up, but don't expect everyone else to feel the same way.
In all of your posts, you provided one instance of an SA worked discriminating and the organization not doing anything about it. Although that incident is unfortunate, it doesn't change the fact that the organization as a whole does a lot of good work.
Now if they had a history (read: multiple events) of discrimination, then I might be more likely to agree with you. Your reaction is just as bad as the Christian Coalition wanting to boycott Ford for publishing in a gay magazine. It all comes down to people blowing things out of proportion instead of focusing on what really matters.
Oh, and before you come up with some way that I'm discriminating and therefore evil, you should know that my wife's uncle is gay. He's a great guy and it's his decision to make.