ha@evangelion linux $ grep -Ri dynix * ha@evangelion linux $
Didn't work as advertised. Didn't he state (in the interview) that this should turn up some evidence? That even in the copyright on the headers in the linux kernel, I should find some statements about Dynix? He even referred to Sourceforge if I remember correctly.
I'm using kernel 2.4.21_pre7 (with Gentoo patches). Anyone else found it?
In reality, mostly nothing. The goverments don't seem to care about its citizens. I've tried contacting mine (sweden) and all I know is that someone opened it (since their email client respected my request for read receipt) but nothing more.
And EU is a lot worse... Just look at the software patent issue. Apparently the EU body that is working on devising such things don't care about the input from the people for whom they are creating the laws.
It stinks...
But, as some has said here, it doesn't really matter (yet) since the police does have more important things to do. However, that doesn't stop the businessindustries own "police" (RIAA, BSA, etc etc etc) to act on their own, with or without apparent support of the law.
"... find his car and print him a little message on his windshield"
I don't think it will work. My guess is that this device will have the same drawbacks as any optical mouse out there. Which means that as long as it's flat and not too reflective it will work.
Either way, I think it's waaay cool and I want one now to play with:D
Btw, what if they combined it with a mouse... Then you could use it with your laptop and also print when needed. Would reduce the amount of junk you need to take with you... Besides, bluetooth would give alot better range than most common RF based mouses.
And it's good fun. Sure, sometimes you miss the good old frames or the target attribute on your links (solvable via javascript) but all in all, using XHTML has made the layout on my site (www.sensenet.nu) alot easier. Also, the use of stylesheets meant that I could easily custimize/skin the site as needed.
The only problem as I see it, is that XHTML 1.1 and CSS isn't always good. Just a simple thing such as aligning text & images in the center of a div means that I need to resort to tables since <center> isn't allowed, and there is no horizontal-align (only text-align which "SHOULD" apply to text only, but some browsers seems to know better (ie, worse)).
As for compatibility, Opera, IE and Mozilla has sucessfully rendered my pages. Ofcourse, there are some minor bugs (Mozilla sets borders on hidden form field, Opera adds lots of space between lines on <ul> lists) but all in all, I like it.
Now, if only pseudoclasses worked as advertised on all browsers, my work would be alot easier:)
Anyway, thats my five cents...
WiFi for this, WiFi for that...
on
Is 3G Irrelevant?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
...is it just me or does it seem like WiFi is going to replace everything??
It's weird. First, people complain about bluetooth, saying:
"Hey, Bluetooth is slower and doesn't have the range of WiFi, it won't have a future."
*duh* Bluetooth is a replacement for IRDA and cables. Which means that it has an entirely different set of goals than WiFi, thus, it supplements WiFi and should not be considered an alternative to WiFi. Works great for connecting my PDA to the internet using GPRS, or when I use the BT headset. Playing a game against a friend over bluetooth during a boring meeting is also nice (and doesn't look as strange as when you use IRDA and need to point the damn thing against eachother)
And now:
"3G is to slow/troublesome/expensive, lets use WiFi instead, its faster/easier/cheap"
Again, *duh*... different goals. 3G is the next step in mobile phone communications. Much like 2.5G (GPRS) was the next step after dialup gsm data connections. Ofcourse, having the 3G standard hyped as "Watch streaming DVD movies on your phone" or the likes doesn't help it much.
Yes, I've tried it in real life (Malmoe/Sweden, using 3's phones & networks) and it works. Okay, so I might get a better image if I had a laptop + webcam + WiFi, but then, it isn't really that mobile, now is it? (Imagine making a call with that thing whilst riding a bicycle or something:) )
Besides, if you compare the powerusage, you'll soon find that you probably wouldn't want a "wifi-phone".
To conclude this post, WiFi is great, but so is 3G and Bluetooth. They are all different technologies, designed to fit different goals. I for one would love having a PCMCIA card that did WiFi, 3G, BT and GPRS. This way, nomatter what, I could always, somehow, get online.
The only problem is the startup cost. It's not like this come bundled with the computer. Even if it did, it would be "wrong thing" to start with. A language like AMOS on the Amiga would allow people to do really cool stuff without knowing too much about things.
In no time we would be able to write cool demos, small games, etc. And eventually, when reaching the limits of "AMOS" people would start to think of migrating to other languages.
Anyway, this is how I got started:)... AMOS -> AMOS Pro -> C, Asm, C++, Java,......
I mean, in this age were we are supposed to tweak the bejesus out of everything (just look at all the people with computers in refridgerators:) ), why not simply let the users choose themselfs?
Just add a new page in the driver settings where you can add an exe-file and then allow the user to activate the different "tweaks/optimizations". It would be more honest and people who want more speed than looks would be happy as a clam.
"But won't the user be confused by all the options?" I hear you ask. Maybe, but have you looked at the BIOS setup lately? Now, the wrong settings here can potentially blow the socks of your precious processor, but the wrong tweak setting will only make DOOM XII look ugly.
Anyway, thats my five cents on this issue. Enough with this and onwards to new drivers and more piethrowing;)
...what nVidia promised Futuremark inorder to get them to validate nVidia's approach.
A serverfarm? (god knows nVidia has alot of them;)) A boatload of GeforceFX? Not to sue them?
All the above plus lots of money?
Anyhow, this just proves that anything and everyone has a price. This makes 3dMark a beautiful demo to impress your friends with, but a benchmark tool? Nah...
I simply got to the point that I could count the number of real emails on my hands. So I reversed my previous filter. Instead of filtering spam to my spam folder, I made it default *ALL* mail to the spam folder except from certain known addresses (such as work, friends and my own domain). So far, it has only made one wrong decision, and that was because I hadn't written the email address of a friend correctly.
This is waaaaay better than any other filtermethod I've tried and requires no learning period at all:)
A better solution would be to modify the mails coming from AOL and add a footer that states that AOL is activly blocking mail for no good reason and that you as the recipient should be aware and contact their postmaster and complain.
Much better than this idea of "kids play" with doing to them what they are doing to us.
They are missing the point. I own a SonyEricsson P800 and while it's a good phone, it is bulky at times. I'd like something like a Samsung clamshell phone (you know, where you open the phone to see the display) where the keyboard has been replaced with an additional screen (touchsensitive). It would have lots of uses (better input for email/surf/etc, being able to see ones own camera image when doing video conference (yeah, I know, not really viable right now, but it's a thought:) )).
Feedback is problem though (just as you mentioned). There should be some way of raising parts of the screen with 1mm or so, which would allow for feedback. Ofcourse, this must be dynamic and correspond to the screen layout.
All we need now is for the cellphone companies to catch on. Replacing the keyboard on the phone with a touchscreen would allow for better input (where the "keyboard" would change depending on what the application needs). And if designed into one of those clamshell phones, the risk of damaging it would be minimal.
So, instead of adding an extra display on the outside, place it on the inside (hey, maybe we even can have three screens? Scaaary;-) )
Backdoors are very hard to justify and also adds coding (as mentioned here before).
However, I've been involved in projects where we've added an easter egg.
Why? I don't know, it's fun, easy and it's cool when you can show someone that you actually was part of the development. Ofcourse, these projects were inhouse product development. I would probably not consider doing such a thing in a customer's product that I'm working with, besides, that's not what they are paying me for.
Uhm, not to be obnoxious or so, but "because they can"... Much in the sense of some software/hardware made by us "geeks" (like, combo computer/coffee maker). The difference is that this is a company doing it, and thus bad. Noone says anything when a person builds a complete PC into his car with godknowswhat:)... But I guess the coolest part would be to have it act like a computer and allow you to replace windows with linux.
Anyway, I do agree with previous comments, who needs this? The last thing the cardrivers need is yet another thingy to muck about with when driving (nav, radio, cellphone, pda & passengers should be enough already:))
How will paladium affect computers and OS in other countries? I'm from sweden and the prospect of living with US laws (DRM, CARP, DMCA, etc) isn't a very compelling idea.
Will we (non US) be unaffected by paladium? If so, how?
We all know that even the safest and best satellite receivers with codes that update every day or so are broken. Heck, they even have pirate cards now, that can automatically adapt (ie, update) to the new codes. So with the growing resistance to having your life dictated by the cooperate companies (ok, so I'm overreacting a bit here:)) people will find a way around it, sooner or later (probably sooner).
Besides, from all one reads, it would seem that this only affects the US, or that the rest of the world will loose the capabilities to watch anything after 2007.
Hopefully, by 2007, the MPAA and RIAA will have shoot themself in the foot enough times to either:
a) Gone under (and been replaced... better? Dunno) b) Realized their stupidity and started to take advantage of the way new content can be delivered (as if) c) Be totally ignored by any manufactor (in order to cater for the customers)
Maybe I'm overreacting (or just plain tired) but this is getting silly. If the MPAA/RIAA/Corps would have their way, we'd still be using VHS and there wouldn't be a "record" function on the VCR (defeating the acronym somewhat;))
Ahem, the drawback of this conclusion would be that everyone would have to watch the DVD on his/hers computer instead on the bigscreen (in my case, 29" TV). So, no, I'll keep downloading anime fansubs until I can buy it on R1 with english subs and watch it the "proper" way.
True, thus, the device needs some logic and a device driver on the computer side, but that was inevidible anyway (how else would you make bluetooth work;))
Besides, if you read the spec for HID over BT it says "The Human Interface Device Profile Specification [4] defines the protocols,
procedures, and features that shall be used by Bluetooth Human Interface Devices,
such as keyboards, pointing devices, gaming devices, and remote monitoring
devices. This specification uses the USB (Universal Serial Bus) definition of Human
Interface Device (HID) [4] in order to leverage the existing class drivers for USB HID
devices." which I take as it would be possible to make an USB hub that runs over BT.
This is mostly true.
Bluetooth isn't designed for highspeed (atleast not 1.x of the standard) but you're missing something here. Most people aren't like us. If you could put the "USB-BT" hub anywhere in your room and connect keyboards, mouse, joystick, pocketpc's then I don't think they'd complain much about speed. Not now atleast. I mean, people run iPaq via the serial cable for crying out loud;) (which is 0.1 Mbit/sec)
I for one wouldn't mind at all. I think the biggest problem here is to get the latency low enough to make a device such as the mouse work good enough.
Btw, while they are developing the USB-BT hub, they could also make it act as a repeater for the BT in the computer, thus increasing the range of my other BT equipped hardware:-)
Having developed a commercial webbased Calendar/Contact system in PHP, I can only agree that too few applications out there are aware that we don't want to logon to each subpart of a groupware system. It should all be integrated. We ran into the same problem when the customers wanted to integrate our system into theirs (when we designed the system, it was for internal use, so we didn't care about billing/authentication that much), so that became quite a nightmare to add afterwards.
A few points on how to better succeed with groupware:
Plugin architecture. VERY IMPORTANT, since the system most likely will evolve many times and you don't want to rewrite/patch it all the time.
Plugin authentication. Never assume anything about how to authenticate a user.
Modulelize (is there such a word?) your application, thus minimizing the risk of bugs when editing parts of it.
Abstract database access. As with authentication, don't assume everyone runs mySQL
Session managment. You must be able to run your own session or/and make use of a provided session mechanism when interacting with other systems. Or it will be useless (see authentication)
There is probably alot more to be said, but these are the ones that spring to mind immediatly when writing this.
Last but not least, do your homework. A plugin authentication must work with LDAP/mySQL/HTTP or even pre-loggedin users (thus, no new question about login) or it will not do. Again, never assume anything:)
My personal experience and work has lead me to think twice about undertaking such a huge project again. Atleast, I will try and avoid doing the same mistakes again, and I hope you'll learn something from it too. Don't get me wrong though... it was a fun thing to do (and, incidentally, my first major work in PHP, so it might explain some of the shortcomings... or so I keep telling myself;))
Information Wave will also deploy peer-to-peer clients on the Gnutella network from its security research and development network (honeynet) which will offer files with popular song titles derived from the Billboard Top 100 maintained by VNU eMedia. No copyright violations will take place, these files will merely have arbitrary sizes similar to the length of a 3 to 4 minute MP3 audio file encoded at 128kbps
Now, this sounds alot like what RIAA proposes to do aswell. I mean, putting files out on the gnutella network that aren't actually what the pretend to be. Sounds very familiar.
And as someone else wrote, blocking RIAA is no better than RIAA blocking you. I'd rather have that it was an opt-in service, which, if you for some reason, feared RIAA (or wanted to make a statement) could ask the ISP to block it. However, this is unlikely to happen, since it would probably be too costly and few would apply for it.
So whats the solution then? Well, the ISP should monitor RIAA and if they attempt to damage or intrude on peoples network, sue them.
Other than that, now would probably be a good time to read up on firewalls and install/tweak one:)
...is just to keep it in the box it came with. Ofcourse, this depends on the box. But I take my Samtron 15" TFT to LAN parties and friends in the original box. It has a handle and, after adding some tape to the opening to protect the cardboard, I use "wood tape" (dunno what's the real name, but it leaves no glue, is more or less like papper on a roll with glue on one side) to seal the box. There is even room to store the cables for the monitor and computer.
Should this sound a bit shakey, let me assure you that it isn't. Besides, if I'd like some more protection, all I need to add is a layer of plastic or something on the cardboard box "doors" to protect the screen.
Sometimes, what sounds simple & cheap, is actually a good solution:)
I bought a Sony DVP-S7000 (I'm not totally sure about the model nr, not at home right now) from a company called DVDirect.net and they premodified it to be region free and macrovision free. The thing is, I can skip whatever I like, heck, even the Title or DVD Menu button works whereever I am. So I don't even need to fastforward or chapterskip to skip the commercials or warnings.
And regarding an earlier post regarding using the nonlinear DVD format better, the player can show all chapters/titles and lets you jump to whichever you want. Thus, even the new fancy RCE protection (that stops region moded players if they are all auto) can be circumvented by just browsing the chapters and choosing the one that starts the movie.
Now, my previous player, a Samsung 990, didn't even allow fastforward at times, and it was modded too (by the same company). The thing is, I don't think the companies selling modded players advertise the facts that I described above.
The idea of a password sucks. Sure, it worked once before security was really important. And the notion of changing password every month and keeping track of old ones and also enforcing rules on difficulty only leads to what has been written on this post earlier: PostIt notes and the likes.
Now, how about trying another way of authentication...
Fingerprints? Unfortunatly that was proven to be easily crackable.
Smartcards? Well, that too has vulnerabilities.
DNA / Retinal scans? Yeah, thats more like it, but hardly practical.
The idea is to combine the previous two. A smartcard must be inserted and to logon, your fingerprint must be used. This way, you make it really hard for someone to crack it, and still, it's easy to use/remember.
Is it 100% foolproof? Nope, but in this day and age, what is? Best security is to do everything in your head and even that can be compromised, but hey, it's better than nothing.
Why am I writing this comment? Well, I adminstrate the network at work (atleast 3 passwords), I logon at work (1 password), I have computers at clients (2-3 passwords) and I run my own servers and workstations (2-3 passwords). To sum it up, I must know atleast 10 password where 7 of them must be really hard to crack. It's getting on my nerves damn it;-)... Thats why!
Slashdot Mirror
Didn't work as advertised. Didn't he state (in the interview) that this should turn up some evidence? That even in the copyright on the headers in the linux kernel, I should find some statements about Dynix? He even referred to Sourceforge if I remember correctly.
I'm using kernel 2.4.21_pre7 (with Gentoo patches). Anyone else found it?
In reality, mostly nothing. The goverments don't seem to care about its citizens. I've tried contacting mine (sweden) and all I know is that someone opened it (since their email client respected my request for read receipt) but nothing more.
... Just look at the software patent issue. Apparently the EU body that is working on devising such things don't care about the input from the people for whom they are creating the laws.
And EU is a lot worse
It stinks...
But, as some has said here, it doesn't really matter (yet) since the police does have more important things to do. However, that doesn't stop the businessindustries own "police" (RIAA, BSA, etc etc etc) to act on their own, with or without apparent support of the law.
"... find his car and print him a little message on his windshield"
:D
... Then you could use it with your laptop and also print when needed. Would reduce the amount of junk you need to take with you ... Besides, bluetooth would give alot better range than most common RF based mouses.
I don't think it will work. My guess is that this device will have the same drawbacks as any optical mouse out there. Which means that as long as it's flat and not too reflective it will work.
Either way, I think it's waaay cool and I want one now to play with
Btw, what if they combined it with a mouse
Just a thought...
And it's good fun. Sure, sometimes you miss the good old frames or the target attribute on your links (solvable via javascript) but all in all, using XHTML has made the layout on my site (www.sensenet.nu) alot easier. Also, the use of stylesheets meant that I could easily custimize/skin the site as needed.
:)
The only problem as I see it, is that XHTML 1.1 and CSS isn't always good. Just a simple thing such as aligning text & images in the center of a div means that I need to resort to tables since <center> isn't allowed, and there is no horizontal-align (only text-align which "SHOULD" apply to text only, but some browsers seems to know better (ie, worse)).
As for compatibility, Opera, IE and Mozilla has sucessfully rendered my pages. Ofcourse, there are some minor bugs (Mozilla sets borders on hidden form field, Opera adds lots of space between lines on <ul> lists) but all in all, I like it.
Now, if only pseudoclasses worked as advertised on all browsers, my work would be alot easier
Anyway, thats my five cents...
...is it just me or does it seem like WiFi is going to replace everything??
... different goals. 3G is the next step in mobile phone communications. Much like 2.5G (GPRS) was the next step after dialup gsm data connections. Ofcourse, having the 3G standard hyped as "Watch streaming DVD movies on your phone" or the likes doesn't help it much.
:) )
:D
It's weird. First, people complain about bluetooth, saying:
"Hey, Bluetooth is slower and doesn't have the range of WiFi, it won't have a future."
*duh* Bluetooth is a replacement for IRDA and cables. Which means that it has an entirely different set of goals than WiFi, thus, it supplements WiFi and should not be considered an alternative to WiFi. Works great for connecting my PDA to the internet using GPRS, or when I use the BT headset. Playing a game against a friend over bluetooth during a boring meeting is also nice (and doesn't look as strange as when you use IRDA and need to point the damn thing against eachother)
And now:
"3G is to slow/troublesome/expensive, lets use WiFi instead, its faster/easier/cheap"
Again, *duh*
Yes, I've tried it in real life (Malmoe/Sweden, using 3's phones & networks) and it works. Okay, so I might get a better image if I had a laptop + webcam + WiFi, but then, it isn't really that mobile, now is it? (Imagine making a call with that thing whilst riding a bicycle or something
Besides, if you compare the powerusage, you'll soon find that you probably wouldn't want a "wifi-phone".
To conclude this post, WiFi is great, but so is 3G and Bluetooth. They are all different technologies, designed to fit different goals. I for one would love having a PCMCIA card that did WiFi, 3G, BT and GPRS. This way, nomatter what, I could always, somehow, get online.
Anyway, this is my take on it... Bash away
The only problem is the startup cost. It's not like this come bundled with the computer. Even if it did, it would be "wrong thing" to start with. A language like AMOS on the Amiga would allow people to do really cool stuff without knowing too much about things.
:) ... AMOS -> AMOS Pro -> C, Asm, C++, Java, ......
In no time we would be able to write cool demos, small games, etc. And eventually, when reaching the limits of "AMOS" people would start to think of migrating to other languages.
Anyway, this is how I got started
I mean, in this age were we are supposed to tweak the bejesus out of everything (just look at all the people with computers in refridgerators :) ), why not simply let the users choose themselfs?
;)
Just add a new page in the driver settings where you can add an exe-file and then allow the user to activate the different "tweaks/optimizations". It would be more honest and people who want more speed than looks would be happy as a clam.
"But won't the user be confused by all the options?" I hear you ask. Maybe, but have you looked at the BIOS setup lately? Now, the wrong settings here can potentially blow the socks of your precious processor, but the wrong tweak setting will only make DOOM XII look ugly.
Anyway, thats my five cents on this issue. Enough with this and onwards to new drivers and more piethrowing
...what nVidia promised Futuremark inorder to get them to validate nVidia's approach.
;))
A serverfarm? (god knows nVidia has alot of them
A boatload of GeforceFX?
Not to sue them?
All the above plus lots of money?
Anyhow, this just proves that anything and everyone has a price. This makes 3dMark a beautiful demo to impress your friends with, but a benchmark tool? Nah...
I simply got to the point that I could count the number of real emails on my hands. So I reversed my previous filter. Instead of filtering spam to my spam folder, I made it default *ALL* mail to the spam folder except from certain known addresses (such as work, friends and my own domain). So far, it has only made one wrong decision, and that was because I hadn't written the email address of a friend correctly.
:)
This is waaaaay better than any other filtermethod I've tried and requires no learning period at all
True, but I still belive that this is a better way of demonstrating. Besides, the people using GPG will probably agree with it too :)
A better solution would be to modify the mails coming from AOL and add a footer that states that AOL is activly blocking mail for no good reason and that you as the recipient should be aware and contact their postmaster and complain.
Much better than this idea of "kids play" with doing to them what they are doing to us.
They are missing the point. I own a SonyEricsson P800 and while it's a good phone, it is bulky at times. I'd like something like a Samsung clamshell phone (you know, where you open the phone to see the display) where the keyboard has been replaced with an additional screen (touchsensitive). It would have lots of uses (better input for email/surf/etc, being able to see ones own camera image when doing video conference (yeah, I know, not really viable right now, but it's a thought :) )).
:)
Feedback is problem though (just as you mentioned). There should be some way of raising parts of the screen with 1mm or so, which would allow for feedback. Ofcourse, this must be dynamic and correspond to the screen layout.
If they can fix that, I'll get one asap
All we need now is for the cellphone companies to catch on. Replacing the keyboard on the phone with a touchscreen would allow for better input (where the "keyboard" would change depending on what the application needs). And if designed into one of those clamshell phones, the risk of damaging it would be minimal.
;-) )
So, instead of adding an extra display on the outside, place it on the inside (hey, maybe we even can have three screens? Scaaary
Backdoors are very hard to justify and also adds coding (as mentioned here before).
However, I've been involved in projects where we've added an easter egg.
Why? I don't know, it's fun, easy and it's cool when you can show someone that you actually was part of the development. Ofcourse, these projects were inhouse product development. I would probably not consider doing such a thing in a customer's product that I'm working with, besides, that's not what they are paying me for.
Uhm, not to be obnoxious or so, but "because they can" ... Much in the sense of some software/hardware made by us "geeks" (like, combo computer/coffee maker). The difference is that this is a company doing it, and thus bad. Noone says anything when a person builds a complete PC into his car with godknowswhat :) ... But I guess the coolest part would be to have it act like a computer and allow you to replace windows with linux.
:))
Anyway, I do agree with previous comments, who needs this? The last thing the cardrivers need is yet another thingy to muck about with when driving (nav, radio, cellphone, pda & passengers should be enough already
How will paladium affect computers and OS in other countries? I'm from sweden and the prospect of living with US laws (DRM, CARP, DMCA, etc) isn't a very compelling idea.
Will we (non US) be unaffected by paladium? If so, how?
Why not have vacuum in the harddrives? Why air at all?? (or am I missing some fundamental physics here? ;))
We all know that even the safest and best satellite receivers with codes that update every day or so are broken. Heck, they even have pirate cards now, that can automatically adapt (ie, update) to the new codes. So with the growing resistance to having your life dictated by the cooperate companies (ok, so I'm overreacting a bit here :)) people will find a way around it, sooner or later (probably sooner).
;))
Besides, from all one reads, it would seem that this only affects the US, or that the rest of the world will loose the capabilities to watch anything after 2007.
Hopefully, by 2007, the MPAA and RIAA will have shoot themself in the foot enough times to either:
a) Gone under (and been replaced... better? Dunno)
b) Realized their stupidity and started to take advantage of the way new content can be delivered (as if)
c) Be totally ignored by any manufactor (in order to cater for the customers)
Maybe I'm overreacting (or just plain tired) but this is getting silly. If the MPAA/RIAA/Corps would have their way, we'd still be using VHS and there wouldn't be a "record" function on the VCR (defeating the acronym somewhat
My $0.02 / MrWorf
Ahem, the drawback of this conclusion would be that everyone would have to watch the DVD on his/hers computer instead on the bigscreen (in my case, 29" TV). So, no, I'll keep downloading anime fansubs until I can buy it on R1 with english subs and watch it the "proper" way.
:-) /MrWorf
Sorry
- True, thus, the device needs some logic and a device driver on the computer side, but that was inevidible anyway (how else would you make bluetooth work
;))
- This is mostly true.
;) (which is 0.1 Mbit/sec)
I for one wouldn't mind at all. I think the biggest problem here is to get the latency low enough to make a device such as the mouse work good enough.Besides, if you read the spec for HID over BT it says "The Human Interface Device Profile Specification [4] defines the protocols, procedures, and features that shall be used by Bluetooth Human Interface Devices, such as keyboards, pointing devices, gaming devices, and remote monitoring devices. This specification uses the USB (Universal Serial Bus) definition of Human Interface Device (HID) [4] in order to leverage the existing class drivers for USB HID devices." which I take as it would be possible to make an USB hub that runs over BT.
Bluetooth isn't designed for highspeed (atleast not 1.x of the standard) but you're missing something here. Most people aren't like us. If you could put the "USB-BT" hub anywhere in your room and connect keyboards, mouse, joystick, pocketpc's then I don't think they'd complain much about speed. Not now atleast. I mean, people run iPaq via the serial cable for crying out loud
Btw, while they are developing the USB-BT hub, they could also make it act as a repeater for the BT in the computer, thus increasing the range of my other BT equipped hardware :-)
A few points on how to better succeed with groupware:
- Plugin architecture. VERY IMPORTANT, since the system most likely will evolve many times and you don't want to rewrite/patch it all the time.
- Plugin authentication. Never assume anything about how to authenticate a user.
- Modulelize (is there such a word?) your application, thus minimizing the risk of bugs when editing parts of it.
- Abstract database access. As with authentication, don't assume everyone runs mySQL
- Session managment. You must be able to run your own session or/and make use of a provided session mechanism when interacting with other systems. Or it will be useless (see authentication)
There is probably alot more to be said, but these are the ones that spring to mind immediatly when writing this.Last but not least, do your homework. A plugin authentication must work with LDAP/mySQL/HTTP or even pre-loggedin users (thus, no new question about login) or it will not do. Again, never assume anything :)
My personal experience and work has lead me to think twice about undertaking such a huge project again. Atleast, I will try and avoid doing the same mistakes again, and I hope you'll learn something from it too. Don't get me wrong though... it was a fun thing to do (and, incidentally, my first major work in PHP, so it might explain some of the shortcomings... or so I keep telling myself ;))
Now, this sounds alot like what RIAA proposes to do aswell. I mean, putting files out on the gnutella network that aren't actually what the pretend to be. Sounds very familiar.
And as someone else wrote, blocking RIAA is no better than RIAA blocking you. I'd rather have that it was an opt-in service, which, if you for some reason, feared RIAA (or wanted to make a statement) could ask the ISP to block it. However, this is unlikely to happen, since it would probably be too costly and few would apply for it.
So whats the solution then? Well, the ISP should monitor RIAA and if they attempt to damage or intrude on peoples network, sue them.
Other than that, now would probably be a good time to read up on firewalls and install/tweak one :)
Should this sound a bit shakey, let me assure you that it isn't. Besides, if I'd like some more protection, all I need to add is a layer of plastic or something on the cardboard box "doors" to protect the screen.
Sometimes, what sounds simple & cheap, is actually a good solution :)
And regarding an earlier post regarding using the nonlinear DVD format better, the player can show all chapters/titles and lets you jump to whichever you want. Thus, even the new fancy RCE protection (that stops region moded players if they are all auto) can be circumvented by just browsing the chapters and choosing the one that starts the movie.
Now, my previous player, a Samsung 990, didn't even allow fastforward at times, and it was modded too (by the same company). The thing is, I don't think the companies selling modded players advertise the facts that I described above.
A shame really...
Now, how about trying another way of authentication...
The idea is to combine the previous two. A smartcard must be inserted and to logon, your fingerprint must be used. This way, you make it really hard for someone to crack it, and still, it's easy to use/remember.
Is it 100% foolproof? Nope, but in this day and age, what is? Best security is to do everything in your head and even that can be compromised, but hey, it's better than nothing.
Why am I writing this comment? Well, I adminstrate the network at work (atleast 3 passwords), I logon at work (1 password), I have computers at clients (2-3 passwords) and I run my own servers and workstations (2-3 passwords). To sum it up, I must know atleast 10 password where 7 of them must be really hard to crack. It's getting on my nerves damn it ;-) ... Thats why!
Well, there you have it... My two cents...