My last project was to help design the database of all the jokes.
It was quite a project and actually quite enlightening. It's amazing to hear all the jokes you once heard that made fun of people from Arkansas, being retold about people from Newfoundland or wherever.
Once we got the data consolidated, we were able categorize them and set a primary key for each joke. This was particularly effective because the jokes could be then referred to (and even enjoyed) merely by referring to the primary key. (And any variant information.)
For example, "6653 - Newfie" would take the base text,
6653 - "Why did the $Disparaged_ethnic_groupmember put tinfoil on his nose?"
and insert the variant information.
After work, we'd head to the pub and hoist a few pints, retelling our favorites, only needing to use the number.
"37684!" someone would shout and the rest of the group would laugh.
"238!" and people would be rolling on the floor...
One night, Dr. Wiseman stands up and says "6245!"
Dead silence. Thinking, he again tries. "6245?"
Again, dead silence.
Dejected, he sat down and stared into his Guinness and mutters: "I never *could* tell a joke..."
I remember reading about 10 years ago of a new technology that had a magnetic code that was implantable under the skin of an animal.
Initially, this was to be used for pets, to aid in recovery of lost animals.
At the time, I remember thinking that the next step would be to use them on soldiers, to eliminate the need for dog tags.
Eventually, it would be offered as a way of "Keeping Kids Safe" (tm) from abductors.
Eventually, everyone would be required to have one.
If I remember correctly, the implant was a series of magnetic wafers stacked with their polarity representing a binary code, all sealed in a glass or plastic capsule. Never wears out or needs a power source.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
At my old job, I was the resident Linux geek.
One day, a coworker brought in a copy of Corel that had come in the back of Linux Magazine. Knowing absolutely nothing about Linux, he was able to install it on a spare machine and have it view all of the machines on his Windows network.
Corel had a great 'Network Neighborhood' thing in KDE that actually worked, right from the start
He told me that the install consisted of clicking 'OK' 5 times.
One more Linux user that we probably wouldn't have if he'd gotten a copy of Slackware with his magazine. *That* is the value that Corel adds.
3. It gives you pointers, nothing good for someone comming from a windows env. You want a step by step guide, sounding easy a-la-windows install, to make it look simple and straightfoward. That's the big problem with some linux article, the authors knows their systems so well, that they can't put themselves in the shoes of someone that install linux and doesn't know how to access his floppy from the shell because he's used to a:.
What would be great is if someone were to put together a bootable CD iso that had the ability to search for dhcp servers and then Windows domains via SAMBA.
Something any MCSE could download and burn, then drop into any old PC with a nic and a CD drive.
Imagine you're a network admin with not a lot of time, you could hand one of these CDs to any new/visiting employee and just tell them to boot from it and use their normal password.
All you'd need is a Linux box sitting on the network somewhere running Webmin, for the Admin to add users to.
In fact, I'd love to burn such an ISO onto one of those 50MB business card CDs.
I can't be the first one to think of such a thing - I'm heading over now to ltsp.org to see if it's already available...
One of the things that had been keeping me using Windows at all was IE - It really was so far ahead of Netscape on Linux. At least the default install of Netscape 4.73 that seemed to ship with every version that I installed.
Over at Linux World Tokyo, I picked up a copy of Mozilla 0.7 from a little table of geeks called the "Mojira Gumi" (In Japan, Godzilla is called Gojira - Gumi means syndicate.)
Mozilla is fantastic. In most ways it's as good as IE - in some ways better.
The most important part for me was that it made browsing the web on Linux just as good as on Windows. It got rid of that feeling that I was missing out when I browsed - No more ugly fonts and trashy CSS rendering.
I also trusted it more. Better control of cookies.
Sylpheed for email is very Outlook Express-ish, without all of the scripting dangers. I never liked having HTML rendered in my mail anyway.
My recommendation - Set up a spare partition for Linux - Get the Latest Mandrake or RedHat from LinuxISO.org. Try Mozilla. Try Sylpheed. Get VMWare for the Windows stuff.
When I was a kid in the early seventies, I used to build radios - Crystal sets and hacked together tube radios from parts in the family attic. One of my lucky finds was a 1950's bakelite shortwave radio - something with 'wave' in its name, I think can't quite remember it now. Had a funky antenna that fit into the top, I remember...
I got the damn thing working after frequent trips to Radio Shack's free 'Tube Tester' and a lot of experimentation. (Try any tube with the right number of pins... Replace resistors that had gone black - Victory garden walls and all...)
Got the thing working and my brother and I would stay up late listening to Radio Moscow's propoganda. Brilliant, abstract stuff; The boy scouts were a paramilitary training group and the US govt was making sausage out of Native Americans. The woman who read the news sounded a bit like Natasha from the Bullwinkle cartoons.
Of course, we always switched over then to Dr. Demento when that came on...
A couple years ago on an Aeroflot plane to Moscow, I sat next to a former KGB agent and we drank vodka together and talked about how we missed the cold war. I told him about listening to the 'Voice of Moscow' or whatever it was called. We both agreed that international animosity had reached a certain level of respectability and taste with the cold war.
I asked him if they had the good movies that we did - he called them 'Spymaster' movies, but the ones he told me about only had the west Germans as the opponent - never the Americans, (Too bad. Either he was sparing my feelings, or we weren't as significant as we thought we were... I suspect the former.)
That was a time that really turned me on to communication and technology. Hearing a voice from so far away on a hunk of wires that I had badly cobbed together from cast-off parts. Hearing that series of tones that helped you tune in to the station before the broadcast.
I hope right now, some kid is sitting in his room, burning his fingers with a soldering iron over a pile of junk parts, finally hearing a crackle and then a voice.
I can't imagine a better thrill...
Before you get too excited about the idea of an AI sorting your email for you, imagine having someone's grandmother do the task.
Not too likely that she'd produce acceptable results, yet few would dispute her sentience...
If you've been doing VB or Access or any of those, take a look at Borland Kylix - They've made a free version available for writing GPL apps, so you can get your hands dirty with it.
It has a lot of the nice features of developing in VB - a great IDE, etc.
Slashdot ad a story on it if you missed it: http://slashdot.org/developers/01/07/25/1146211.sh tml
To hell with proper syntax! I put my punctuation outside of quotes. Change that archaic rule now!
Speaking of archaic technologies and practices, it's somewhat interesting to note that placing punctuation marks inside quotes is a relatively modern practice, started after the advent of the printing press. The use of justufied text became popular and it lined up better if the lines ended in a quote, rather than a period. The reasoning was aesthetic, not logical.
I also put punctuation outside quotes, when dealing with technical writing, where a quoted command could become confusing. I'd love to see the practice become more widespread.
I'm not knocking "dumbed down." I'm using Mandrake 7.1 (kernel 2.4.6 and KDE 2.1) at home, rather than Slackware or LinuxFromScratch. I AM a Windows refugee....
You know, I never understood the logic of forcing everybody to go to Slackware as many have suggested in this thread. I mean, the question was "What's the best starter distro?" and people are basically responding "F*** you, I suffered, so should you!" Go get a copy of slackware and figure it all out the same way that we did.
In effect, they're saying, "I have nothing to offer to the experience of using Linux - You are doomed to suffer the same frustrations as I did."
That's such a load.
They think that typing "tar -zxvf, ./.configure, make - make install" is somehow more sanctified than typing rpm -i...
If I write a tool or a script or a howto, it's to make things *easier* for the next guy - Not to punish them.
"Linux from Scratch" - When did you first hear that term? A week ago? A month ago? It's a meme - A great ideal, a great-sounding idea. What percentage of slashdotters are actively using a LfS OS as their primary OS? Fewer than one tenth of one percent, I'd guess. Don't feel inadequate because you didn't build your own GUI using VI and assembly language. Use what ya got. If Mandrake does what you need, use it - Don't apologize.
If someone asks you which version of Linux you are running, don't get apologetic, look them in the eye and say "2.4 Kernel".
As for tech vs. traffic cop, I'd suggest getting into databases - as a very wise person once said, "Databases tell you two things: Who owes you money and where they live - as long as those two things matter, you'll be able to find work..."
I've never tried Mandrake, but seems to be the distro of choice for refugees from Windows; I answer newbie questions over at AskMe.com and I see a tremendous amount of new users saying they are using Mandrake - and liking it.
I'm a bit out of the loop over here - how did it get to be so popuar? Is it the cheapest on the shelf at WalMart or something?
Over here, we get free distros with magazines (Linux Magazine, Linux Business, Nikkei Linux, etc.) But they haven't had Mandrake yet - (Probably has poor I18n support.)
(It's a great feeling to be able to pick up a new distro for ten bucks at a convenience store or magazine stand...)
You and I know that you don't need your proof of purchase, but is it inconcievable that the bulk of people using a bootleg copy would feel uncomfortable going to Microsoft.com - Thinking that MS will somehow *know* and track them down?
This is what happens when you give admins a false sense of security.
After all, they became an MCSE after a couple months of hitting the books, rather than a few years of hacking old hardware. They got a certificate and the sense that the Microsoft way is the best way - If you don't understand what a dialog box is asking, just hit 'Enter' and go with the recommendation. That's how IIS got installed on all of those PCs and this 'Default.ida' nonsense too. I still don't know what a 'default.ida' is used for, and I'm a pretty technical guy. - Something to do with indexing? Whatever.
Some of my friends are MCSEs. - Not all of them are 'hackers' who actually watch what happens in their systems. They trust that MS will send them a shiny new CD with a 'Service Pack', along with a few other goodies to play with when an update is needed.
The problem is compounded by the fact that these Win2K CDs got passed around - Microsoft knows this and whether or not they admit it, it's part of their marketing. From what I've seen, I'd suspect that the bulk of the problems are coming from the home users who are running a borrowed copy of Win2K on their PC/Cable Modem setup. The ones who don't get the service packs and don't log into Microsoft.com too read the bulletins for fear of being asked for proof of purchase.
You Microsoft has these thousands of unlicenced customers that they know are using their software in a dangerous manner - Everything installed, every service running - all the lights on, but nobody home. What is MS's liability?
With all of the talk about the signifigance of an AOL icon vs. an IE icon on the desktop, MS *knows* how people will react when running an install - They know that if the user gets a dialog that says "Activate IIS?" that an unsure user will probably say yes, even if he has no idea what IIS is or what the risks are.
Microsoft has got to accept the blame for this mess - It is their doing.
Unfortunately, this is the first step in the process of requiring people running servers of any kind to be *licenced* - Now won't that be fun?
I came to the same conclusion that you did - I'm getting hit by home users - ATT.co.jp in my case.
People with the same dialup connection that I have.
Where do home users typically get their copy of Win2K or NT Server? Yup, that's right, they 'borrow' it from work.
So start telling people the 'truth' - That Code Red is actually the BSA's way of routing out unlicenced Windows installs...
;-)
Pity that the 'default page' on IIS doesn't list the 'Registered User' on it. That would get people turning off unused servers.
Funny thing is that I had just written the firewall explanation page below as it became very timely - I now get more hits for that than from Code Red.
Don't patch if it will break other server stuff.
Turn off IIS.
Install Apache to your Windows box.
Problem solved.
If you can't do that, just turn off IIS, we don't need your content that much.
I find it amazing that they didn't take every precaution to protect what might be their highest-profile property. If MSDN went down, they could cover it - Most of their other servers, too. But Hotmail? That's so closely associated with Passport and, by association, dot-net, that I think they would do absolutely everything in their power to keep it spotless in the minds of the users.
Good luck to them. They'll need it.
I got two unsolicited calls asking how to set up Apache on a Windows 2000 server. These were people who had never seen a need to switch before. If I convert their servers for them, I'll probably set up a Linux box or two, 'just for backup purposes'.
Heh heh.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
I don't expect secure IRC
on
Secure IRC?
·
· Score: 3, Funny
And I don't expect pure water in gutters, either.
Yet both seem to serve a purpose, don't they?
Actually, I was making a jab at Ximian's install procedure - They have you open an xterm as *root*, then do lynx -source http://code_url|sh
Now *that* really gave me the willies...
Cheers,
Jim
Touting this as being a cross between HTML and Javascript makes me wonder why anyone would want to use it.
Javascript is one of the worst implimentations of a bad idea that I've seen.
One of the basic tenets of client server programming is "Never Trust The Client". Yet still, people write shopping carts that calculate totals and shipping charges in javascript, then trust the client to send back accurate data. I'm sure that TBL knows this, but is he expecting that every curl developer has even taken a basic CS class and will remember that? I doubt it. Developers will look to push as much of the processing as possible off to the client, imposing more security risks. They say they use a 'sandbox' - doesn't VBScript say the same thing?
Also, their micropayment scheme is going to turn a lot of people off. First they say how this has been developed using the same grant as the WWW, (my tax money?) then they explain that if I put up 'curl' code on my site, I've got to pay them per user. Sure. No problem. Next!
Why don't I just put up a page of C++ source and tell people to "lynx -source http://code_url|gcc"?
Sure, whatever...
All I can say is that it's gotten better - way better over the past year. Grab the latest RedHat or Mandrake or Debiam and screw around with it.
A *lot* of people got a bad taste using crappy early versions. Bad first impressions are hard to shake...
My own Windows install died (again) a couple of months ago and I really don't care at this point.
Be sure to grab the latest Mozilla - It seriously does work as well as IE. If you're using the Netscape 4.7 that comes with all the distros, the web will be painfully ugly.
Pretty much if you have your heart set on using Windows, go with it - I can't change your mind.
Slashdot Mirror
My last project was to help design the database of all the jokes.
It was quite a project and actually quite enlightening. It's amazing to hear all the jokes you once heard that made fun of people from Arkansas, being retold about people from Newfoundland or wherever.
Once we got the data consolidated, we were able categorize them and set a primary key for each joke. This was particularly effective because the jokes could be then referred to (and even enjoyed) merely by referring to the primary key. (And any variant information.)
For example, "6653 - Newfie" would take the base text,
6653 - "Why did the $Disparaged_ethnic_groupmember put tinfoil on his nose?"
and insert the variant information.
After work, we'd head to the pub and hoist a few pints, retelling our favorites, only needing to use the number.
"37684!" someone would shout and the rest of the group would laugh.
"238!" and people would be rolling on the floor...
One night, Dr. Wiseman stands up and says "6245!"
Dead silence. Thinking, he again tries. "6245?"
Again, dead silence.
Dejected, he sat down and stared into his Guinness and mutters: "I never *could* tell a joke..."
;-)
(Sorry, I couldn't resist. )
Jim
I remember reading about 10 years ago of a new technology that had a magnetic code that was implantable under the skin of an animal.
Initially, this was to be used for pets, to aid in recovery of lost animals.
At the time, I remember thinking that the next step would be to use them on soldiers, to eliminate the need for dog tags.
Eventually, it would be offered as a way of "Keeping Kids Safe" (tm) from abductors.
Eventually, everyone would be required to have one.
If I remember correctly, the implant was a series of magnetic wafers stacked with their polarity representing a binary code, all sealed in a glass or plastic capsule. Never wears out or needs a power source.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. (666)
The name of the contributor of the original article?
Damian Whitworth
That's right. DAMIAN
*Now* I've got the heebie-jeebies...
Jim in Tokyo
http://bathroom.mit.edu/cgi-bin/flush.pl?stall=1
;-)
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
At my old job, I was the resident Linux geek.
One day, a coworker brought in a copy of Corel that had come in the back of Linux Magazine. Knowing absolutely nothing about Linux, he was able to install it on a spare machine and have it view all of the machines on his Windows network.
Corel had a great 'Network Neighborhood' thing in KDE that actually worked, right from the start
He told me that the install consisted of clicking 'OK' 5 times.
One more Linux user that we probably wouldn't have if he'd gotten a copy of Slackware with his magazine. *That* is the value that Corel adds.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
...damage attributable to static electricity causes losses to the global electronics industry in excess of $45 billion per year...
Would that include lightning strikes? (If I remember gradeschool science correctly, lightning is static electricity on a big scale...)
$45 billion dollars? that sounds kind of high - Any chance Bill Gates will off himself scuffing across the carpet in his slippers next year?
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
3. It gives you pointers, nothing good for someone comming from a windows env. You want a step by step guide, sounding easy a-la-windows install, to make it look simple and straightfoward. That's the big problem with some linux article, the authors knows their systems so well, that they can't put themselves in the shoes of someone that install linux and doesn't know how to access his floppy from the shell because he's used to a:.
What would be great is if someone were to put together a bootable CD iso that had the ability to search for dhcp servers and then Windows domains via SAMBA.
Something any MCSE could download and burn, then drop into any old PC with a nic and a CD drive.
Imagine you're a network admin with not a lot of time, you could hand one of these CDs to any new/visiting employee and just tell them to boot from it and use their normal password.
All you'd need is a Linux box sitting on the network somewhere running Webmin, for the Admin to add users to.
In fact, I'd love to burn such an ISO onto one of those 50MB business card CDs.
I can't be the first one to think of such a thing - I'm heading over now to ltsp.org to see if it's already available...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
One of the things that had been keeping me using Windows at all was IE - It really was so far ahead of Netscape on Linux. At least the default install of Netscape 4.73 that seemed to ship with every version that I installed.
Over at Linux World Tokyo, I picked up a copy of Mozilla 0.7 from a little table of geeks called the "Mojira Gumi" (In Japan, Godzilla is called Gojira - Gumi means syndicate.)
Mozilla is fantastic. In most ways it's as good as IE - in some ways better.
The most important part for me was that it made browsing the web on Linux just as good as on Windows. It got rid of that feeling that I was missing out when I browsed - No more ugly fonts and trashy CSS rendering.
I also trusted it more. Better control of cookies.
Sylpheed for email is very Outlook Express-ish, without all of the scripting dangers. I never liked having HTML rendered in my mail anyway.
My recommendation - Set up a spare partition for Linux - Get the Latest Mandrake or RedHat from LinuxISO.org. Try Mozilla. Try Sylpheed. Get VMWare for the Windows stuff.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
When I was a kid in the early seventies, I used to build radios - Crystal sets and hacked together tube radios from parts in the family attic. One of my lucky finds was a 1950's bakelite shortwave radio - something with 'wave' in its name, I think can't quite remember it now. Had a funky antenna that fit into the top, I remember...
I got the damn thing working after frequent trips to Radio Shack's free 'Tube Tester' and a lot of experimentation. (Try any tube with the right number of pins... Replace resistors that had gone black - Victory garden walls and all...)
Got the thing working and my brother and I would stay up late listening to Radio Moscow's propoganda. Brilliant, abstract stuff; The boy scouts were a paramilitary training group and the US govt was making sausage out of Native Americans. The woman who read the news sounded a bit like Natasha from the Bullwinkle cartoons.
Of course, we always switched over then to Dr. Demento when that came on...
A couple years ago on an Aeroflot plane to Moscow, I sat next to a former KGB agent and we drank vodka together and talked about how we missed the cold war. I told him about listening to the 'Voice of Moscow' or whatever it was called. We both agreed that international animosity had reached a certain level of respectability and taste with the cold war.
I asked him if they had the good movies that we did - he called them 'Spymaster' movies, but the ones he told me about only had the west Germans as the opponent - never the Americans, (Too bad. Either he was sparing my feelings, or we weren't as significant as we thought we were... I suspect the former.)
That was a time that really turned me on to communication and technology. Hearing a voice from so far away on a hunk of wires that I had badly cobbed together from cast-off parts. Hearing that series of tones that helped you tune in to the station before the broadcast.
I hope right now, some kid is sitting in his room, burning his fingers with a soldering iron over a pile of junk parts, finally hearing a crackle and then a voice.
I can't imagine a better thrill...
Cheers,
Jim (Now far away...)
Before you get too excited about the idea of an AI sorting your email for you, imagine having someone's grandmother do the task.
Not too likely that she'd produce acceptable results, yet few would dispute her sentience...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
If you've been doing VB or Access or any of those, take a look at Borland Kylix - They've made a free version available for writing GPL apps, so you can get your hands dirty with it.h tml
It has a lot of the nice features of developing in VB - a great IDE, etc.
Slashdot ad a story on it if you missed it: http://slashdot.org/developers/01/07/25/1146211.s
Cheers,
Jim
To hell with proper syntax! I put my punctuation outside of quotes. Change that archaic rule now!
Speaking of archaic technologies and practices, it's somewhat interesting to note that placing punctuation marks inside quotes is a relatively modern practice, started after the advent of the printing press. The use of justufied text became popular and it lined up better if the lines ended in a quote, rather than a period. The reasoning was aesthetic, not logical.
I also put punctuation outside quotes, when dealing with technical writing, where a quoted command could become confusing. I'd love to see the practice become more widespread.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
I'm not knocking "dumbed down." I'm using Mandrake 7.1 (kernel 2.4.6 and KDE 2.1) at home, rather than Slackware or LinuxFromScratch. I AM a Windows refugee....
/.configure, make - make install" is somehow more sanctified than typing rpm -i...
You know, I never understood the logic of forcing everybody to go to Slackware as many have suggested in this thread. I mean, the question was "What's the best starter distro?" and people are basically responding "F*** you, I suffered, so should you!" Go get a copy of slackware and figure it all out the same way that we did.
In effect, they're saying, "I have nothing to offer to the experience of using Linux - You are doomed to suffer the same frustrations as I did."
That's such a load.
They think that typing "tar -zxvf, .
If I write a tool or a script or a howto, it's to make things *easier* for the next guy - Not to punish them.
"Linux from Scratch" - When did you first hear that term? A week ago? A month ago? It's a meme - A great ideal, a great-sounding idea. What percentage of slashdotters are actively using a LfS OS as their primary OS? Fewer than one tenth of one percent, I'd guess. Don't feel inadequate because you didn't build your own GUI using VI and assembly language. Use what ya got. If Mandrake does what you need, use it - Don't apologize.
If someone asks you which version of Linux you are running, don't get apologetic, look them in the eye and say "2.4 Kernel".
As for tech vs. traffic cop, I'd suggest getting into databases - as a very wise person once said, "Databases tell you two things: Who owes you money and where they live - as long as those two things matter, you'll be able to find work..."
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
I've never tried Mandrake, but seems to be the distro of choice for refugees from Windows; I answer newbie questions over at AskMe.com and I see a tremendous amount of new users saying they are using Mandrake - and liking it.
I'm a bit out of the loop over here - how did it get to be so popuar? Is it the cheapest on the shelf at WalMart or something?
Over here, we get free distros with magazines (Linux Magazine, Linux Business, Nikkei Linux, etc.) But they haven't had Mandrake yet - (Probably has poor I18n support.)
(It's a great feeling to be able to pick up a new distro for ten bucks at a convenience store or magazine stand...)
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
You and I know that you don't need your proof of purchase, but is it inconcievable that the bulk of people using a bootleg copy would feel uncomfortable going to Microsoft.com - Thinking that MS will somehow *know* and track them down?
This is what happens when you give admins a false sense of security.
After all, they became an MCSE after a couple months of hitting the books, rather than a few years of hacking old hardware. They got a certificate and the sense that the Microsoft way is the best way - If you don't understand what a dialog box is asking, just hit 'Enter' and go with the recommendation. That's how IIS got installed on all of those PCs and this 'Default.ida' nonsense too. I still don't know what a 'default.ida' is used for, and I'm a pretty technical guy. - Something to do with indexing? Whatever.
Some of my friends are MCSEs. - Not all of them are 'hackers' who actually watch what happens in their systems. They trust that MS will send them a shiny new CD with a 'Service Pack', along with a few other goodies to play with when an update is needed.
The problem is compounded by the fact that these Win2K CDs got passed around - Microsoft knows this and whether or not they admit it, it's part of their marketing. From what I've seen, I'd suspect that the bulk of the problems are coming from the home users who are running a borrowed copy of Win2K on their PC/Cable Modem setup. The ones who don't get the service packs and don't log into Microsoft.com too read the bulletins for fear of being asked for proof of purchase.
You Microsoft has these thousands of unlicenced customers that they know are using their software in a dangerous manner - Everything installed, every service running - all the lights on, but nobody home. What is MS's liability?
With all of the talk about the signifigance of an AOL icon vs. an IE icon on the desktop, MS *knows* how people will react when running an install - They know that if the user gets a dialog that says "Activate IIS?" that an unsure user will probably say yes, even if he has no idea what IIS is or what the risks are.
Microsoft has got to accept the blame for this mess - It is their doing.
Unfortunately, this is the first step in the process of requiring people running servers of any kind to be *licenced* - Now won't that be fun?
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
I came to the same conclusion that you did - I'm getting hit by home users - ATT.co.jp in my case.
People with the same dialup connection that I have.
Where do home users typically get their copy of Win2K or NT Server? Yup, that's right, they 'borrow' it from work.
So start telling people the 'truth' - That Code Red is actually the BSA's way of routing out unlicenced Windows installs...
;-)
Pity that the 'default page' on IIS doesn't list the 'Registered User' on it. That would get people turning off unused servers.
Funny thing is that I had just written the firewall explanation page below as it became very timely - I now get more hits for that than from Code Red.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
Don't patch if it will break other server stuff.
Turn off IIS.
Install Apache to your Windows box.
Problem solved.
If you can't do that, just turn off IIS, we don't need your content that much.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
"... The old system will be divided into smaller clusters and cascaded to faculty ...
"Damn. I asked for an iMac, but got this stupid Linux cluster instead!"
;^)
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
I find it amazing that they didn't take every precaution to protect what might be their highest-profile property. If MSDN went down, they could cover it - Most of their other servers, too. But Hotmail? That's so closely associated with Passport and, by association, dot-net, that I think they would do absolutely everything in their power to keep it spotless in the minds of the users.
Good luck to them. They'll need it.
I got two unsolicited calls asking how to set up Apache on a Windows 2000 server. These were people who had never seen a need to switch before. If I convert their servers for them, I'll probably set up a Linux box or two, 'just for backup purposes'.
Heh heh.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
And I don't expect pure water in gutters, either.
Yet both seem to serve a purpose, don't they?
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
Actually, I was making a jab at Ximian's install procedure - They have you open an xterm as *root*, then do lynx -source http://code_url|sh
Now *that* really gave me the willies...
Cheers,
Jim
Part of my nefarious plan - And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids -
;-)
Touting this as being a cross between HTML and Javascript makes me wonder why anyone would want to use it.
Javascript is one of the worst implimentations of a bad idea that I've seen.
One of the basic tenets of client server programming is "Never Trust The Client". Yet still, people write shopping carts that calculate totals and shipping charges in javascript, then trust the client to send back accurate data. I'm sure that TBL knows this, but is he expecting that every curl developer has even taken a basic CS class and will remember that? I doubt it. Developers will look to push as much of the processing as possible off to the client, imposing more security risks. They say they use a 'sandbox' - doesn't VBScript say the same thing?
Also, their micropayment scheme is going to turn a lot of people off. First they say how this has been developed using the same grant as the WWW, (my tax money?) then they explain that if I put up 'curl' code on my site, I've got to pay them per user. Sure. No problem. Next!
Why don't I just put up a page of C++ source and tell people to "lynx -source http://code_url|gcc"?
Sure, whatever...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
You're probably a gamer.
It does suck for games.
All I can say is that it's gotten better - way better over the past year. Grab the latest RedHat or Mandrake or Debiam and screw around with it.
A *lot* of people got a bad taste using crappy early versions. Bad first impressions are hard to shake...
My own Windows install died (again) a couple of months ago and I really don't care at this point.
Be sure to grab the latest Mozilla - It seriously does work as well as IE. If you're using the Netscape 4.7 that comes with all the distros, the web will be painfully ugly.
Pretty much if you have your heart set on using Windows, go with it - I can't change your mind.