Maybe so, but they definitely ask you for your account number and password when you login to their website.
They *do*???? (I'm talking Banks, not PayPal) The ones I've seen are:
Certificate installed in your browser + 4 digits of a 16 digit codecard + your password
No certificate, but you get to enter your customer code (which is *NOT* your account, it's just and ID), plus your password, plus 3 digits of a 16 digit codecard. (This is less secure than point one, but more "customer friendly" since it doesn't require installing a certificate)
Customer code + one of those devices that gives you a code. I don't know how these work, but I sure can't predict what the thingy is going to give me as a number (it's a similar system to what car-keys send to the car in order to open it. The modern systems don't use a fixed code)
There may be many more, but all three seem reasonable to me. All there do not identify the customer directly, because there is no account number. Besides, I'm a client: I have more than one account. What account would I need to type in, in order to log in on their system? My first account? One of the first thing you learn at banks that there is a 1:N relationship between customer and accounts.
..., banks,... are so lousy at keeping accurate records.
In the 20 years I have had bank accounts, they screwed up exactly *once*. A few €'s on an interest calculation. I wrote a letter and got my money back. My account number, my address, my name, my birthdate were always correct. Actually, banks (at least the serious ones) are absolutely paranoid about knowing as much as they can about you. They datamine that stuff and profile you. If you didn't know that, you are being naive.
To a bank, knowing the customer is one of the most important things.
Oh, don't think that I only saw banks on the outside. I actually worked for over six years in the financial world. Your data, meaning at least your name and your account number is stored on one of those famous big irons and they have numerous backups.
What can be lost, and is lost quite frequently due to some fuckups in the data-processing chain *transactions* can be lost. (Be it Buy/Sell or normal bank transfers) While very bad for the image of the bank (and they usually try to recover such fuckups as much as they can), it didn't lose *customer data*. Sure, a transaction may be two days late (which can be very sucky for many clients), but it's only the transaction.
The closest thing to "losing" customer data that I saw was when a small bank (<100 employees) had to check all it's visa files: the question was "is a photocopy of ID present in the file?". Not that they "lost" this data, they just didn't have this information in the computer and the legislation changed requiring an ID. Nothing was lost, but non-complying people had to be contacted. This was done by writing them a letter signed by the guy responsible for that department.
Also: I don't know if you realise, but banks with ebanking functionality (about all of them these days, and as I see many support Firefox and alternate browsers... at least my banks do) usually want to have an email functionality within. That is: the system has integrated webmail. Sure, you can't contact hotchicka@yahoo.com with that "email" (which goes over their secure link), but you can contact customer service over it. If they would have to need to contact *you* they would use that... and even then, they really prefer writing you a good old dead-tree letter over bit'n bytes because, frankly, if you use your ebanking once or twice a month you're going to get your messages late.
Oh, and a small anecdote: I went to the bank last week in order to get papers to open a joint account with my future wife. The guy started asking his standard question: "Why do you want to open a joint account?", but cut in the middle and remarked: "Ah, yes, you're getting married!". I was baffled that he knew. How could he know? Very easy: a few weeks before I was there in order to get some foreign currency, they asked me why I needed (a quite rare) currency. Somehow I told them it was for my honeymoon and that was promptly marked in their system. While it may seem scary, banks (and other large companies) do this all the time.
Ah, I see.... I assumed that because it was based on BSD that it would be the same license. Seems that I should read the pages that I link to and not just skim over them. Still, it confirms my post that they can take BSD code and relicense it to whatever they want, as long as it is BSD compatible (which is not much of a requirement)
Of course, it is totally possible to have a certain subsystem that is GPL and the rest closed source. It simply doesn't matter. Microsoft could take CygWin (which is GPL) and distribute it by default with Windows. Not a problem, Microsoft just needs to distribute the source of the part that is GPL.
This is crap. And by saying things like this, I can hopefully score some points with these "ugly" ladies. I'm desperate. And lonely. Somebody call me? Please?
Advice: don't go for "ugly". Go for chubby. They can be both pretty and chubby. Usually those are lonely too and have lower self esteem. (At least low enough to talk to you *grin*) If you're lucky, you get one of those and she starts actually to lose weight. (I have one of those specimens myself, yay for me!)
I think this is what people really need to learn in schools at the moment: how advertisment and modern media work.
I don't know for my girlfriend, but I do know that at my school we got that critical thinking part. We had exactly this topic: "how much of the media can you trust". Anyway, perhaps my wordchoice wasn't good enough. I didn't mean advertisements as in "stuff on tv". What I meant is the advertisements you get in your (real) mailbox. Like the stuff that is on sale in the local supermarket, or (to stay on topic) the local hardware reseller. I use those as "information", an information about "what to get where at which price". I explain: I get this stuff in the mailbox and only look at it if I'm in the market for a new $product. When I don't need anything it's tossed directly in the paper-recycling-bin. When I need $product, I look at the different shops and try to find something that is the price/quality that I want. My girlfriend works about the same.
So this was not meant in the sense "the big bad media controls my mind", but more like "with the information that I had at hand, I had the following options". I never get Apple flyers in my mailbox, all other flyers advertise Fujitsu-Siemens, Acer, HP, etc. From the consumer point of view that is the only thing that exists.
Normal people in the market for a computer only have these kind of advertisements as "information". I can't blame them for not going to one of the three shops in the country that actually sell Apple machines (alongside Windows machines, I might add). Something like an Apple store doesn't exists here. Yeah, I know, I live in a true banana republic:-(
As for the rant about education versus training. I agree... but you probably already guessed that.
Sure! I'd love to. Personally, I learnt it that way and think it's the best way. Now, go and look in a school to see if such a thing is even on the programme. No way you'll find such a thing. The people that decide what goes on during the school year don't know the command line themselves.
Oh, yeah... sure blame a non-native-english speaker for his grammar errors and not previewing because he posted between two lessons. So the text should have been: "the schooling she had was Windows-only". Personally I think that could qualify as a mere typo.
Now, don't get me wrong: DOS is archaic these days... BUT you learnt what a file is, what a program is, how to manage directories and basic skills on the command line. You might think that this is stupid, but that are basic computing skills that you have (unknownly) transferred to using in other contexts. Let it be Windows, Linux, Mac OS X or any other operating system of your choice that uses files, programs and have a command line.
Kids these days do not know the difference between a program and a file. Double clicking on a file is "starting the program", they often don't know where exactly on the filesystem they have saved their file, they don't know what a file type is (Text file? That must be Word, right?) and I could rave on. I see this every day, and it is absolutely maddening.
Exactly, and it goes much deeper than that. My girlfriend (there goes my slashdot reputation) was absolutely amazed that I had something non-Windows. (I run: Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and also Windows 2000). Before she knew me she bought a (much too expensive) Windows machine for her needs. She only got trouble with it. She was absolutely amazed at what my iBook could do. Needless to say that she was pretty much pissed that she didn't know about Apple. Why didn't she know? Simple: she schooling she had was Windows-only. Even though some teachers told her to get a Mac, it didn't stick with her. (After all she never saw one before meeting me).
So when the time came to buy a computer, she looked at the advertisements. The only thing you see there were... you got it: Windows machines. She bought that (and upon the advice of her former boyfriend, she bought the most expensive one that was sold at the time). For the same price she could have gotten a fully loaded Apple. She doesn't need much: she's a kindergarden teacher and has to write the occasional letter to parents and surf the web and email. The machine she had (before buying her new computer) would have been more than adequate with some added RAM. (The old machine now is used by her mom after I added RAM and reinstalled it... It works *just fine*)
Only after I cleaned her new machine and secured it (which took a lot of time) her machine is now usable. I already tried to convince her to buy a Mac Mini to replace her P-IV machine, but she doesn't want to spend money on new computer hardware anymore. Very understandable.
As for Microsoft in education. I am an (apprentice-)teacher since january this year. Everything I (have) to teach is 100% Microsoft. The school-programme itself never mentions "Microsoft" per se, but if you read the programme and know what software is installed on the machines, you know exactly what is meant. Up until now, I managed to survive with my own Office 97 copy to prepare courses. Alas, I now have to do databases, which means "Access". I found out the hard way that Access 2003 (what the school runs) is incompatible with Access 97. Today I asked the computer-department to get a copy of Office 2003 in order to upgrade my own machine. (Note: this is completely legal in the context of their contract). It absolutely sucks. Personally I write all my stuff (courses, tests, etc...) in OpenOffice, but course preparation without the software that is run at school is pretty much impossible. I fear that Office 2003 is going to a dog on my P-III 600Mhz laptop that I have dedicated for schoolwork.
Of course, schooling in this country is completely sold to Microsoft.:-( I'd rather teach the kids the basics, but as I understood, the school programmes are written by asking companies what they want from people that have a certain diploma. The companies obviously want Microsoft, because that will give them people that are nearly immediately productive. It's sad... Perhaps some day this will change, but for now I'm stuck with that kind of mentality.
Makes me wonder why I actually wanted to become a teacher.:-((
Don't know for you, but our VAT is 16%. VAT depends on the country not on the EU. Or do I misunderstand and you have 24% VAT? That doesn't change much, because legally I can require the VAT of my country if I order something in another country.
I should ask my dad the details. He's the economist in the family;-)
Just checked amazon.fr, amazon.de and amazon.co.uk: (Article searched "Ixus 430)
amazon.co.uk, there is no indication about shipping. Perhaps it works, perhaps not. I'm not going to try since I have to use the Pound there
amazon.fr: "Expédition : cet article peut être expédié uniquement en France métropolitaine et à Monaco." = "Shipping: this product can only be shipped to metropolitan France and Monaco"
amazon.de: "Versand: Dieser Artikel kann nur in folgende Länder verschickt werden: Deutschland, Österreich" = "Shipping: This product can only be shipped to: Germany and Austria"
I'd try other amazon stores (Italy? Spain?) but I can't read Italian or Spanish. I can read dutch, but amazon.nl redirects to amazon.co.uk. For Belgium, amazon.be redirects to amazon.de (I doubt that such a thing is useful to Belgians) What is interesting though, is that your amazon account works on all these servers. The accounts don't seem to be shared with amazon.com.
Of course... You are 100% right, but if the online shops don't offer to ship to said countries you're screwed anyway. In essence: the Dutch can't order at amazon.de. Neither can I.
amazon.co.uk might work (I'm going to check), but then you get the problem of the current plug that doesn't match. (I once bought a Psion Revo in the UK, which had this problem)
Oh, and while I'm at it: Online Petition to get aLuxembourg Apple store . I don't expect it to do anything, and considering the amount of comments in this story only few people will see it. (Probably no Luxembourg residents)
Except that Amazon.de only delivers electronics to Germany and Austria. I know because I live in a small country next to Germany that doesn't have it's own amazon. When I ordered a digital camera for my girlfriend I had to ask a co-worker that lived in Germany to have it delivered there. I don't work there anymore and I don't know anybody in germany.
The Apple store is worse: doesn't exist for my country and apple.be, apple.de and apple.fr do not deliver to my country. Friggin Iceland has an apple store, but we don't. Damn.lu TLD;-)
Of course nobody needs raw sockets, and after all no other operating system supports them. I mean, it's not as if OpenBSD, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, NetBSD, the various Linux flavours support it. It would be too dangerous.
No, Microsoft... none of those support raw sockets. Oh, wait... they all do. The problem is not raw sockets, the problem are the holes in the OS in the first place. If your OS doesn't run services that can be hacked, or if the applications don't allow to execute untrusted code there is no problem. Avoiding raw sockets is treating the symptoms, not the cause.
but, I alone, have been responsible for at least 20 different downloads? Why? I don't carry around my USB stick all the time and when I want to install it somewhere, I just re-download it. Also this can't be the downloads of a single release: it's the total downloads since version 1.0? If yes, how about the people that redownloaded just because a new version came out?
Of course, often a download my indicate more than one install: at my parents, I downloaded the program once and installed it on all machines (4 in total)
So, we cannot say much from download numbers about the spread of the program. We still have the risk that we geeks/nerds download it for people and those people stick to IE. Case in point: I'm a teacher and all my pupils use IE. Even though, I always tell them to use Firefox. Why? Don't ask me... I'm only doing this job since january.
That highly depends on the problem. If your problem is highly parallizable and the application that resolves your problem has been written (correctly) in a multithreaded way, then two CPU's will perform better. (As you say, it doesn't scale in a linear way)
Of course, you might just say that a parallizable problem is not one problem, but many small problems that need to be solved separately;-)
Slashdot Mirror
They *do*???? (I'm talking Banks, not PayPal) The ones I've seen are:
- Certificate installed in your browser + 4 digits of a 16 digit codecard + your password
- No certificate, but you get to enter your customer code (which is *NOT* your account, it's just and ID), plus your password, plus 3 digits of a 16 digit codecard. (This is less secure than point one, but more "customer friendly" since it doesn't require installing a certificate)
- Customer code + one of those devices that gives you a code. I don't know how these work, but I sure can't predict what the thingy is going to give me as a number (it's a similar system to what car-keys send to the car in order to open it. The modern systems don't use a fixed code)
There may be many more, but all three seem reasonable to me. All there do not identify the customer directly, because there is no account number. Besides, I'm a client: I have more than one account. What account would I need to type in, in order to log in on their system? My first account? One of the first thing you learn at banks that there is a 1:N relationship between customer and accounts.In the 20 years I have had bank accounts, they screwed up exactly *once*. A few €'s on an interest calculation. I wrote a letter and got my money back. My account number, my address, my name, my birthdate were always correct. Actually, banks (at least the serious ones) are absolutely paranoid about knowing as much as they can about you. They datamine that stuff and profile you. If you didn't know that, you are being naive. To a bank, knowing the customer is one of the most important things.
Oh, don't think that I only saw banks on the outside. I actually worked for over six years in the financial world. Your data, meaning at least your name and your account number is stored on one of those famous big irons and they have numerous backups.
What can be lost, and is lost quite frequently due to some fuckups in the data-processing chain *transactions* can be lost. (Be it Buy/Sell or normal bank transfers) While very bad for the image of the bank (and they usually try to recover such fuckups as much as they can), it didn't lose *customer data*. Sure, a transaction may be two days late (which can be very sucky for many clients), but it's only the transaction.
The closest thing to "losing" customer data that I saw was when a small bank (<100 employees) had to check all it's visa files: the question was "is a photocopy of ID present in the file?". Not that they "lost" this data, they just didn't have this information in the computer and the legislation changed requiring an ID. Nothing was lost, but non-complying people had to be contacted. This was done by writing them a letter signed by the guy responsible for that department.
Also: I don't know if you realise, but banks with ebanking functionality (about all of them these days, and as I see many support Firefox and alternate browsers... at least my banks do) usually want to have an email functionality within. That is: the system has integrated webmail. Sure, you can't contact hotchicka@yahoo.com with that "email" (which goes over their secure link), but you can contact customer service over it. If they would have to need to contact *you* they would use that... and even then, they really prefer writing you a good old dead-tree letter over bit'n bytes because, frankly, if you use your ebanking once or twice a month you're going to get your messages late.
Oh, and a small anecdote: I went to the bank last week in order to get papers to open a joint account with my future wife. The guy started asking his standard question: "Why do you want to open a joint account?", but cut in the middle and remarked: "Ah, yes, you're getting married!". I was baffled that he knew. How could he know?
Very easy: a few weeks before I was there in order to get some foreign currency, they asked me why I needed (a quite rare) currency. Somehow I told them it was for my honeymoon and that was promptly marked in their system. While it may seem scary, banks (and other large companies) do this all the time.
PEMP? Nah... Go for "Potted Internet Mail Product" and we have a winner ;-))
I was just trying to be funny.
(P.S: My girlfriend doesn't read slashdot... )
Ah, I see.... I assumed that because it was based on BSD that it would be the same license. Seems that I should read the pages that I link to and not just skim over them. Still, it confirms my post that they can take BSD code and relicense it to whatever they want, as long as it is BSD compatible (which is not much of a requirement)
Of course, it is totally possible to have a certain subsystem that is GPL and the rest closed source. It simply doesn't matter. Microsoft could take CygWin (which is GPL) and distribute it by default with Windows. Not a problem, Microsoft just needs to distribute the source of the part that is GPL.
Advice: don't go for "ugly". Go for chubby. They can be both pretty and chubby. Usually those are lonely too and have lower self esteem. (At least low enough to talk to you *grin*) If you're lucky, you get one of those and she starts actually to lose weight. (I have one of those specimens myself, yay for me!)
I think this is what people really need to learn in schools at the moment: how advertisment and modern media work.
I don't know for my girlfriend, but I do know that at my school we got that critical thinking part. We had exactly this topic: "how much of the media can you trust". Anyway, perhaps my wordchoice wasn't good enough. I didn't mean advertisements as in "stuff on tv". What I meant is the advertisements you get in your (real) mailbox. Like the stuff that is on sale in the local supermarket, or (to stay on topic) the local hardware reseller. I use those as "information", an information about "what to get where at which price". I explain: I get this stuff in the mailbox and only look at it if I'm in the market for a new $product. When I don't need anything it's tossed directly in the paper-recycling-bin. When I need $product, I look at the different shops and try to find something that is the price/quality that I want. My girlfriend works about the same.
So this was not meant in the sense "the big bad media controls my mind", but more like "with the information that I had at hand, I had the following options". I never get Apple flyers in my mailbox, all other flyers advertise Fujitsu-Siemens, Acer, HP, etc. From the consumer point of view that is the only thing that exists.
Normal people in the market for a computer only have these kind of advertisements as "information". I can't blame them for not going to one of the three shops in the country that actually sell Apple machines (alongside Windows machines, I might add). Something like an Apple store doesn't exists here. Yeah, I know, I live in a true banana republic :-(
As for the rant about education versus training. I agree... but you probably already guessed that.
Sure! I'd love to. Personally, I learnt it that way and think it's the best way. Now, go and look in a school to see if such a thing is even on the programme. No way you'll find such a thing. The people that decide what goes on during the school year don't know the command line themselves.
+5, Funny... Loved that article. I guess my kids will be born as hackers then ;-)
Oh, yeah... sure blame a non-native-english speaker for his grammar errors and not previewing because he posted between two lessons. So the text should have been: "the schooling she had was Windows-only". Personally I think that could qualify as a mere typo.
Kids these days do not know the difference between a program and a file. Double clicking on a file is "starting the program", they often don't know where exactly on the filesystem they have saved their file, they don't know what a file type is (Text file? That must be Word, right?) and I could rave on. I see this every day, and it is absolutely maddening.
Exactly, and it goes much deeper than that. My girlfriend (there goes my slashdot reputation) was absolutely amazed that I had something non-Windows. (I run: Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and also Windows 2000). Before she knew me she bought a (much too expensive) Windows machine for her needs. She only got trouble with it. She was absolutely amazed at what my iBook could do. Needless to say that she was pretty much pissed that she didn't know about Apple. Why didn't she know? Simple: she schooling she had was Windows-only. Even though some teachers told her to get a Mac, it didn't stick with her. (After all she never saw one before meeting me).
So when the time came to buy a computer, she looked at the advertisements. The only thing you see there were... you got it: Windows machines. She bought that (and upon the advice of her former boyfriend, she bought the most expensive one that was sold at the time). For the same price she could have gotten a fully loaded Apple. She doesn't need much: she's a kindergarden teacher and has to write the occasional letter to parents and surf the web and email. The machine she had (before buying her new computer) would have been more than adequate with some added RAM. (The old machine now is used by her mom after I added RAM and reinstalled it... It works *just fine*)
Only after I cleaned her new machine and secured it (which took a lot of time) her machine is now usable. I already tried to convince her to buy a Mac Mini to replace her P-IV machine, but she doesn't want to spend money on new computer hardware anymore. Very understandable.
As for Microsoft in education. I am an (apprentice-)teacher since january this year. Everything I (have) to teach is 100% Microsoft. The school-programme itself never mentions "Microsoft" per se, but if you read the programme and know what software is installed on the machines, you know exactly what is meant. Up until now, I managed to survive with my own Office 97 copy to prepare courses. Alas, I now have to do databases, which means "Access". I found out the hard way that Access 2003 (what the school runs) is incompatible with Access 97. Today I asked the computer-department to get a copy of Office 2003 in order to upgrade my own machine. (Note: this is completely legal in the context of their contract). It absolutely sucks. Personally I write all my stuff (courses, tests, etc...) in OpenOffice, but course preparation without the software that is run at school is pretty much impossible. I fear that Office 2003 is going to a dog on my P-III 600Mhz laptop that I have dedicated for schoolwork.
Of course, schooling in this country is completely sold to Microsoft. :-( I'd rather teach the kids the basics, but as I understood, the school programmes are written by asking companies what they want from people that have a certain diploma. The companies obviously want Microsoft, because that will give them people that are nearly immediately productive. It's sad... Perhaps some day this will change, but for now I'm stuck with that kind of mentality.
Makes me wonder why I actually wanted to become a teacher. :-((
Sorry... I'm European myself and I tend to find 50Hz approriate. :-) Still, I was referring to the prefix.
POWER-PLUG-0: plugged in, receiving 110 AC volts @ 50mhz
50mhz??? Shouldn't that be just 50Hz?
Or do I misunderstand and you have 24% VAT? That doesn't change much, because legally I can require the VAT of my country if I order something in another country.
I should ask my dad the details. He's the economist in the family ;-)
- amazon.co.uk, there is no indication about shipping. Perhaps it works, perhaps not. I'm not going to try since I have to use the Pound there
- amazon.fr: "Expédition : cet article peut être expédié uniquement en France métropolitaine et à Monaco." = "Shipping: this product can only be shipped to metropolitan France and Monaco"
- amazon.de: "Versand: Dieser Artikel kann nur in folgende Länder verschickt werden: Deutschland, Österreich" = "Shipping: This product can only be shipped to: Germany and Austria"
I'd try other amazon stores (Italy? Spain?) but I can't read Italian or Spanish. I can read dutch, but amazon.nl redirects to amazon.co.uk. For Belgium, amazon.be redirects to amazon.de (I doubt that such a thing is useful to Belgians) What is interesting though, is that your amazon account works on all these servers. The accounts don't seem to be shared with amazon.com.amazon.co.uk might work (I'm going to check), but then you get the problem of the current plug that doesn't match. (I once bought a Psion Revo in the UK, which had this problem)
Oh, and while I'm at it: Online Petition to get aLuxembourg Apple store . I don't expect it to do anything, and considering the amount of comments in this story only few people will see it. (Probably no Luxembourg residents)
The Apple store is worse: doesn't exist for my country and apple.be, apple.de and apple.fr do not deliver to my country. Friggin Iceland has an apple store, but we don't. Damn .lu TLD ;-)
No, Microsoft... none of those support raw sockets. Oh, wait... they all do. The problem is not raw sockets, the problem are the holes in the OS in the first place. If your OS doesn't run services that can be hacked, or if the applications don't allow to execute untrusted code there is no problem. Avoiding raw sockets is treating the symptoms, not the cause.
Of course, often a download my indicate more than one install: at my parents, I downloaded the program once and installed it on all machines (4 in total)
So, we cannot say much from download numbers about the spread of the program. We still have the risk that we geeks/nerds download it for people and those people stick to IE. Case in point: I'm a teacher and all my pupils use IE. Even though, I always tell them to use Firefox. Why? Don't ask me... I'm only doing this job since january.
My congratulations, because most people don't get it :-) Actually, I think you're the first to find it out without my help.
That highly depends on the problem. If your problem is highly parallizable and the application that resolves your problem has been written (correctly) in a multithreaded way, then two CPU's will perform better. (As you say, it doesn't scale in a linear way)
Of course, you might just say that a parallizable problem is not one problem, but many small problems that need to be solved separately ;-)
No probs... After all I was mainly going after Funny mods :-) Not Insightful or Informative as I got.