If you really believe that the US will be able to march into S.E. asia and win a war, I suggest you have another look at your history books.
This reminded me of a quote from Princess Bride:
Vizzini - You only think I guessed wrong - that's what's so funny. I switched glasses when your back was turned. Ha-ha, you fool. You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia", but only slightly less well known is this: "Never go in against a Sicilian, when *death* is on the line.". Hahahahahah.
[Vizzini falls over dead]
I have an MX700 from Logitech. The beauty of this device is that it comes with a stylish cradle, that serves both as the wireless base station for the mouse, along with being a recharger unit as well.
I remember a few years back having an early Logitech wireless mouse/keyboard combo. Then, one late night while we were doing a change - the batteries died, and I had none spare. At that point I decided never to use a "wireless" keyboard or mouse till they came with a recharge unit. Thus, the MX700 was awesome for me.
I would be very suprised if this new model didn't use the same system.
A thai restraunt I have visited recently uses some sort of palm device with a wireless link for taking orders. Beats the heck out of trying to interpret badly written orders back in the kitchen.
But apart from the "wow" factor, I'm not entirely sure I can see the cost justification, although if it all tied back into a central database for billing and monitoring customer trends over time, that would be useful (compared to manual data entry at the end of each day).
Nagios: For availability monitoring. When a service or host goes down, we know about it. Was put in place when we discovered one of our pairs of firewalls (hot standby) had silently failed over because of a faulty hdd, and we hadn't noticed it for 2 days.
Cacti: For throughput and performance monitoring. Makes pretty little graphs. The best thing about it is that it helps bypass the complex configuration of rrdtool by using templates. Documentation on creating new, non-standard graphs could use some work.
Both tools give us a much better view of our network, and what our various devices are doing.
If 90%+ of the market is using Internet Explorer, developers will design websites with IE in mind.
Then microsoft decides to incorporate some non-RFC "features" into IE. Developers know that 90% of the people coming to their websites will have support for this feature, and will use it on the sites they design.
Unfortunately, the particular feature that IE supports is directly tied into Windows, and has no counterpart in Firefox/Opera/etc. Users with browsers different to IE will be unable to view sites using this non-RFC feature, or will have a less than optimal browsing experience on those sites. In order to view these sites correctly, you will need to use IE, which in turn locks you into Windows.
I'm using a hypothetical scenario here, but I believe in some instances this has occured in the past - today I have problems viewing websites designed for IE when I use Firefox, and for quite some time internet banking for unusable except for IE.
Because the browser locks you into the operating system, that is the point of this.
However, the opensims page doesn't really give much details on what it can do, just a lot of mumbo-jumbo I've come to expect from security vendors:
OpenSIMS is an open source project sponsored by Symbiot, Inc. which provides a way for tying together the open source tools used for security management into a common infrastructure. It leads toward having different networks use risk metrics to collaborate on attacker profiling and remediation
.
^-- Which doesn't really tell me much at all. Based on the short flash demo, it looks like you can get realtime views of intrusion attempts. But beyond that, who knows?
The other issue I'm worried about is that I think i'll have to deal with the problems of it being designed for Linux - whilst my snort sensors have been deployed on Solaris. If anyone's tried installing standard linux-based software onto Solaris before, you'll know the problems I'm talking about.:(
I'm someone who's had to wear glasses for about ten years now. About 4 years back I initially tried out some contact lenses, but they didn't correct my astigmatism (meant I could see things at a distance but they didn't appear focused). I gave up on them and until recently, kept with my glasses.
The new contact lenses I have correct my astigmatism and as an added bonus, are tinted too. The freedom and avoidance of the 'geeky look' is well worth the ongoing cost for replacement contacts.
I've really wanted to go for laser eye surgery, but like many others, I'm a scaredy cat. Hell, even my father has recently gone for it and is enjoying the benefits. But as a guy who makes his living off using computers, fucking around with my eyes is not something I want to do if I can avoid it.
My personal feeling is that many of these technologies are new, and we've not yet seen the long-term implications of their use. If I go for corrective laser eye surgery now (at 25), what will my eyes be like at age 50? If they get worse, is it possible to have additional surgery (or is it a once off?), or alternatively, do I need to go back to glasses.
But kudo's to those of you who have been willing to go under the blade and experienced good results, when I get the balls to check it out again, I'll probably do it. For the meantime however, i'm happy with my contacts.
Besides, they look pretty and all the girls in the coffee shops come up to you!
Which coffee shops are you drinking at? I get occasional curious glances my direction (with my 12" PB), but to date no female has come up and said hello - with the exception of waitresses...
Maybe I need to buy a beret! Or one of those Steve Jobs turtlenecks.
Thin-client computing harkens back to ye olden days when the computer administrators were able to actually administer the system. These days, everyone has a system on their desktop that could double as a server, and ends up running so much malware/spyware/etc that they become hobbling pieces of crud that bog down their networks.
I would prefer a thin-client solution at my office for a few reasons. 1) Noise, 2) heat, 3) I might actually have a decent response system. The main issue that I have to face however, is that my apps are all pretty much tied to Windows. Which would mean that my company would have to negotiate some nasty citrix or remote desktop solution which would be rather expensive.
Last thing US needs is more people sitting in front of the computer chatting or playing online games all day. If you get a Democratic congress, I foresee lawsuits against ISPs because "The Internet made me fat!".
I think that says a hell of a lot more about the US legal system than the risk of having greater broadband availability.
Yeh I used to also IRC on my phone via IR between my handspring platinum and my nokia 6210. But in the end I gave it up because GPRS costs were too high and IR connectivity is crappy.
Now if only GPRS costs would go down (locally it's around $AUD 99/mth for 3MB worth of traffic!), my Tungsten T3 and Nokia 6600 would be a match made in heaven!;)
I really dislike the UI of both XMMS and it's Window's predecessor Winamp. They fall into the category of "lets make EVERYTHING skinnable", which makes your application look SWEET!! but near incomprehensible for users to figure out quickly.
For that reason I'm a big advocate of making the desktop skinnable/themeable - as opposed to modifying individual applications. They result in user's having to pause and wonder why "X" particular application looks and behaves differently to the rest of the desktop.
I usually have friends over a lot, so they get to go through them and pick out something I like. Plus, depending on the group makeup - the girls might win out with a romantic comedy "three to tango" - or the guys might win out with something like "Predator".
Most movies I've watched at least 3-4 times, and probably seen the directors commentary on about 25% of them.
As to what the attraction is in purchasing them... I'm in a wierd situation at my place. Me and my housemates are the first to move in since it was renovated, and they neglected to put a television aerial on the roof. Due to an initial difference of opinions, we never got cable tv installed, so we've survived on my collection of DVD's. Oh, and there is no video rental store within walking distance of our place either!
If you're referring to the quote from Traffic - the quote in full refers to two letters (not three):
GENERAL LANDRY When Kruschev was forced out, he sat down and wrote two letters and handed them to his successor. He said "When you get into a situation you can't get out of, open the first letter and you'll be saved. And when you get into another situation you can't get out of, open the second." Soon enough this guy found himself in a tight place. So he opened the first letter. It said, "Blame everything on me." So he blamed the old guy and it worked like a charm. (beat) He got into another situation he couldn't get out of, so he opened the second letter, which read, "Sit down and write two letters."
They stare at each other a beat. Then Landry smiles.
These days I'm far more inclined to spend money on a DVD movie or two as opposed to a computer game. The games that I do have I tend to play for several months. I don't have the time to play anything more than a few titles.
At present it's Battlefield Vietnam, and C&C Generals. I used to play heaps of America's Army, Enemy Territory and Dark Age of Camelot as well.
Most disappointingly, I noticed when I recently purchased splinter cell: pandora tomorrow - I played it for two nights then forgot about it. My Xbox is sitting under the TV gathering dust, while my DVD collection keeps growing.
These days when I walk into the local EBgames, there are very few titles that jump out at me. The handful that I'm probably looking forward to - I already know about and will pickup as soon as they appear. It's been a long time since I've gone in and made a on-the-spot purchase of a game I've never seen before.
The basic plot is this... students have rebelled against the government and "adults", so the govt invoked the battle royale act. Each year, one class of year 9 school students is shipped to a remote island and told that they have to kill each other off. They're all 'tagged' with exploding necklaces that also function as tracking devices for those monitoring the "game". If any more than a single student remains alive after the final (third) day, all the necklaces explode...
It comes down to whether you could kill your own friends...
And once every year, a class of year 9 students will mysteriously disappear, and their tags will gradually wink out over the course of the next three days....
When I heard that a policy change might delay the new release until next year, I was really bummed. That's my one big debian problem--the politcs seem to gum up the works all too frequently.
In other news, RMS announced that GNU Hurd has recently outpaced Debian Stable progress...
Just pulling a solution out of my arse. Have a fileserver on the network (unix of some kind), sharing files via Samba. Create an IPSEC tunnel and access the shares.
I'm sorry to say, that it seems like something is wrong with your email infrastructure. We have a large number of desktop users (400+), and we even have a shockingly horrid internal exchange setup, yet I'm yet to have any issues with "lost" emails in the 1.5 years I've been working here.
I would suspect that the problems your experiencing may be due to various poor implementations of mail servers at your customer's end. Many corporations today that have recently jumped onto the internet have minimal IT support staff, and implement something that "just works". There are usually few considerations for anti-spam controls, content security (viruses, porn), and effective backup procedures.
Something I've started to see appearing are vulnerability management tools which combine asset/vulnerability management with workflow systems.
What does this mean in english?
Today, you scan your various class A/B/C's (with Nessus) within your company, and discover 300 vulnerable systems. You can generate a nice report, but not do much else without a lot of manual calling up of people and forwarding the report.
Instead, there are commercial tools available now that do a few things: 1) Classify IT assets and assign them to different groups (desktop team, unix team, database team) and how critical they are (carrying customer traffic, development servers, etc). 2) Individuals within each group can run ad-hoc scans of their team's systems, or alternatively await reports generated from scheduled scans. 3) Once vulnerabilities are discovered on each team's systems, they are notified and provided with a web-based system to update and close off vulnerabilities when patched. It is then possible to see from a high level, which teams have the most vulnerable systems, and how effective they are in managing security on their part of the network.
Those are the kind of products that the company I work for are now investigating, as for once, they provide solid metrics to demonstrate to management that we're doing our job.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps stage1, but stage 3 won't take nearly that long.
FYI - Stage 1 is the compile EVERYTHING from source, whereas Stage 3 starts with prebuilt packages targetted towards either i386/athlonxp/etc.
I've always started with Stage 3, because I don't believe that the effort:performance-gain ratio is worth it.
Paint it aqua!
This reminded me of a quote from Princess Bride:
PS, More quotes from Princess Bride here
I have an MX700 from Logitech. The beauty of this device is that it comes with a stylish cradle, that serves both as the wireless base station for the mouse, along with being a recharger unit as well.
I remember a few years back having an early Logitech wireless mouse/keyboard combo. Then, one late night while we were doing a change - the batteries died, and I had none spare. At that point I decided never to use a "wireless" keyboard or mouse till they came with a recharge unit. Thus, the MX700 was awesome for me.
I would be very suprised if this new model didn't use the same system.
A thai restraunt I have visited recently uses some sort of palm device with a wireless link for taking orders. Beats the heck out of trying to interpret badly written orders back in the kitchen.
But apart from the "wow" factor, I'm not entirely sure I can see the cost justification, although if it all tied back into a central database for billing and monitoring customer trends over time, that would be useful (compared to manual data entry at the end of each day).
Both tools give us a much better view of our network, and what our various devices are doing.
If 90%+ of the market is using Internet Explorer, developers will design websites with IE in mind.
Then microsoft decides to incorporate some non-RFC "features" into IE. Developers know that 90% of the people coming to their websites will have support for this feature, and will use it on the sites they design.
Unfortunately, the particular feature that IE supports is directly tied into Windows, and has no counterpart in Firefox/Opera/etc. Users with browsers different to IE will be unable to view sites using this non-RFC feature, or will have a less than optimal browsing experience on those sites. In order to view these sites correctly, you will need to use IE, which in turn locks you into Windows.
I'm using a hypothetical scenario here, but I believe in some instances this has occured in the past - today I have problems viewing websites designed for IE when I use Firefox, and for quite some time internet banking for unusable except for IE.
Because the browser locks you into the operating system, that is the point of this.
^-- Which doesn't really tell me much at all. Based on the short flash demo, it looks like you can get realtime views of intrusion attempts. But beyond that, who knows?
The other issue I'm worried about is that I think i'll have to deal with the problems of it being designed for Linux - whilst my snort sensors have been deployed on Solaris. If anyone's tried installing standard linux-based software onto Solaris before, you'll know the problems I'm talking about. :(
I'm someone who's had to wear glasses for about ten years now. About 4 years back I initially tried out some contact lenses, but they didn't correct my astigmatism (meant I could see things at a distance but they didn't appear focused). I gave up on them and until recently, kept with my glasses.
The new contact lenses I have correct my astigmatism and as an added bonus, are tinted too. The freedom and avoidance of the 'geeky look' is well worth the ongoing cost for replacement contacts.
I've really wanted to go for laser eye surgery, but like many others, I'm a scaredy cat. Hell, even my father has recently gone for it and is enjoying the benefits. But as a guy who makes his living off using computers, fucking around with my eyes is not something I want to do if I can avoid it.
My personal feeling is that many of these technologies are new, and we've not yet seen the long-term implications of their use. If I go for corrective laser eye surgery now (at 25), what will my eyes be like at age 50? If they get worse, is it possible to have additional surgery (or is it a once off?), or alternatively, do I need to go back to glasses.
But kudo's to those of you who have been willing to go under the blade and experienced good results, when I get the balls to check it out again, I'll probably do it. For the meantime however, i'm happy with my contacts.
Which coffee shops are you drinking at? I get occasional curious glances my direction (with my 12" PB), but to date no female has come up and said hello - with the exception of waitresses...
Maybe I need to buy a beret! Or one of those Steve Jobs turtlenecks.
Thin-client computing harkens back to ye olden days when the computer administrators were able to actually administer the system. These days, everyone has a system on their desktop that could double as a server, and ends up running so much malware/spyware/etc that they become hobbling pieces of crud that bog down their networks.
I would prefer a thin-client solution at my office for a few reasons. 1) Noise, 2) heat, 3) I might actually have a decent response system. The main issue that I have to face however, is that my apps are all pretty much tied to Windows. Which would mean that my company would have to negotiate some nasty citrix or remote desktop solution which would be rather expensive.
I think that says a hell of a lot more about the US legal system than the risk of having greater broadband availability.
Yeh I used to also IRC on my phone via IR between my handspring platinum and my nokia 6210. But in the end I gave it up because GPRS costs were too high and IR connectivity is crappy.
;)
Now if only GPRS costs would go down (locally it's around $AUD 99/mth for 3MB worth of traffic!), my Tungsten T3 and Nokia 6600 would be a match made in heaven!
For that reason I'm a big advocate of making the desktop skinnable/themeable - as opposed to modifying individual applications. They result in user's having to pause and wonder why "X" particular application looks and behaves differently to the rest of the desktop.
I usually have friends over a lot, so they get to go through them and pick out something I like. Plus, depending on the group makeup - the girls might win out with a romantic comedy "three to tango" - or the guys might win out with something like "Predator".
Most movies I've watched at least 3-4 times, and probably seen the directors commentary on about 25% of them.
As to what the attraction is in purchasing them... I'm in a wierd situation at my place. Me and my housemates are the first to move in since it was renovated, and they neglected to put a television aerial on the roof. Due to an initial difference of opinions, we never got cable tv installed, so we've survived on my collection of DVD's. Oh, and there is no video rental store within walking distance of our place either!
These days I'm far more inclined to spend money on a DVD movie or two as opposed to a computer game. The games that I do have I tend to play for several months. I don't have the time to play anything more than a few titles.
At present it's Battlefield Vietnam, and C&C Generals. I used to play heaps of America's Army, Enemy Territory and Dark Age of Camelot as well.
Most disappointingly, I noticed when I recently purchased splinter cell: pandora tomorrow - I played it for two nights then forgot about it. My Xbox is sitting under the TV gathering dust, while my DVD collection keeps growing.
These days when I walk into the local EBgames, there are very few titles that jump out at me. The handful that I'm probably looking forward to - I already know about and will pickup as soon as they appear. It's been a long time since I've gone in and made a on-the-spot purchase of a game I've never seen before.
Battle Royale
The basic plot is this... students have rebelled against the government and "adults", so the govt invoked the battle royale act. Each year, one class of year 9 school students is shipped to a remote island and told that they have to kill each other off. They're all 'tagged' with exploding necklaces that also function as tracking devices for those monitoring the "game". If any more than a single student remains alive after the final (third) day, all the necklaces explode...
It comes down to whether you could kill your own friends...
And once every year, a class of year 9 students will mysteriously disappear, and their tags will gradually wink out over the course of the next three days....
Only one will survive.
I haven't seen this 250MB of storage yet on my account. I'm sure it's in the works, but it hasn't arrived yet. ...or is my account simply broken?
In other news, RMS announced that GNU Hurd has recently outpaced Debian Stable progress...
Just pulling a solution out of my arse. Have a fileserver on the network (unix of some kind), sharing files via Samba. Create an IPSEC tunnel and access the shares.
I'm sorry to say, that it seems like something is wrong with your email infrastructure. We have a large number of desktop users (400+), and we even have a shockingly horrid internal exchange setup, yet I'm yet to have any issues with "lost" emails in the 1.5 years I've been working here.
I would suspect that the problems your experiencing may be due to various poor implementations of mail servers at your customer's end. Many corporations today that have recently jumped onto the internet have minimal IT support staff, and implement something that "just works". There are usually few considerations for anti-spam controls, content security (viruses, porn), and effective backup procedures.
Good lord. Ancient Art of War... that brings back memories..
I vaguely recall playing that on an EGA (?) screen, and shuffling archers and barbarians around the map.
Something I've started to see appearing are vulnerability management tools which combine asset/vulnerability management with workflow systems.
What does this mean in english?
Today, you scan your various class A/B/C's (with Nessus) within your company, and discover 300 vulnerable systems. You can generate a nice report, but not do much else without a lot of manual calling up of people and forwarding the report.
Instead, there are commercial tools available now that do a few things:
1) Classify IT assets and assign them to different groups (desktop team, unix team, database team) and how critical they are (carrying customer traffic, development servers, etc).
2) Individuals within each group can run ad-hoc scans of their team's systems, or alternatively await reports generated from scheduled scans.
3) Once vulnerabilities are discovered on each team's systems, they are notified and provided with a web-based system to update and close off vulnerabilities when patched. It is then possible to see from a high level, which teams have the most vulnerable systems, and how effective they are in managing security on their part of the network.
Those are the kind of products that the company I work for are now investigating, as for once, they provide solid metrics to demonstrate to management that we're doing our job.