How long before the first huge hole is found in this? Problems will be:
Find documents on the web with worms/trojans/virii and open them for you. How thoughtful!
Keep track of your favorite searches, so when it is exploited someone can sell this for marketing
Like the Windows search it will use up about 90% of your CPU while running, because Microsoft still doesn't get the multitasking thing.
Won't have multiple exclusions, so you always waste time searching through directories where you shouldn't be looking.
Will be too ambitious, searching multimedia, etc.
Will focus on Microsoft Friends first, 'inadvertently' avoid Microsoft Enemies ('Honest, we wouldn't have it avoid OSS/Linux/Sun/etc. sites, we'll look into it right away!'
Will be built into all office products, thus bloating them further, introducing more instability and requiring numbnut PHB's to shell big zorkmids to, yet again, upgrade.
You laugh, but Slashdot is complicated and changing all the time (usually by whim, I suspect.) Such enlightening topics which may be covered:
Personal Journal: You personal crap which wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell of getting approved as a story.
Trolls: How to spot one (e.g. Only an idiot would read this chapter)
Microsoft: Once a day the happy way (except in MA,CA,NY and any other state law requires more frequent bad news about the company.)
Stories: Stuff that may or may not be interesting, though the best stuff often dies until a truly bad submission is made, also Dupes.
Moderation: Whyizzit? (e.g. Why did my doctoral dissertation get a Score:5, Funny)
Metamoderation: Your big chance to work for free.
Polls: What they reveal about that little dark spot on your soul (actually it was a smudge on the auragraph)
Offtopic posts: Today's tech and how it relates to your personal beef with G. W. Bush, Kerry, Tea in China, The Jelly Baby tariff in Portugal or that worrying voice coming from under the bed at night.
Slow page loads (Hey, the Tandy 1200 is overclocked, buster!)
Etc. Beowulf clusters, Soviet Russia, CowboyNealism
Ok, maybe it saves trees or even recycled trees for better use. I personally find using online documentation a massive bother. I shelled
for an expensive software package in the past, a few times, only to find no books or even decent installation instructions were included. I like a good copy of
reference completely separate from the workstation or laptop. Often I'd like to go find a comfortable place to sit and read, or even read up on something while
in line, flying or anywhere else I can make productive used of a few minutes, such as the doctor or dentist. A CD with a manual on it isn't quite going to work. Futher, I
waste battery time if I'm trying to learn while on a laptop. Perhaps the best reason of all, though, is because I can put those yellow Post-It notes in the pages I frequently
need to return to.
A manual for Google? Well, that's not a bad idea, but I think Google has a very simple and intuitive interface. The only thing I think anyone needs
to know is how to construct searches properly. Maybe I'm not the audience and the manual is targetted toward someone who hasn't spend their life around computers or written their
own search engine (it existed for 5 years where I once worked, the replacement is horrible and I'm sure they paid well for that improvement.) The worst thing about search engines is the
'special knowledge' you need to be savvy. How to avoid being tricked into a site which isn't anything like you are looking for, but has a pile of key words in a header somewhere to
get a high Google score. I suppose a book could teach you some of that, but the rest comes with experience.
eing a major player is NOT the same as being a monopoly. They claim to sell 70% of all downloaded music, but even the possibly overestimated-by-Apple market share numbers for the iPod itself are only 40-50%. (and that's only counting certain markets)
Sure, but like nature, business and entertainment abhore a vacuum. Windows, the heir to MS/PC-DOS, was widely adopted in the absense of other viable choices. The same game is playing out with music downloads and their players, iTunes may find itself the standard, as everyone will want to be able to share with everyone else (and I don't mean a bunch of tech-geeks, but ordinary people.)
No, it can't. There's a billion other portable digital players on the market with a whole pile of services to legally download from.
Sources, please. The iPod is hot and sales of iTunes have already hit 100 million downloads. This growth in a relatively small timespan, along with partnerships with Motorola for cell phones, HP for their own portables along with other manufactures for car stereos, etc. suggest Apple is the major player, even if you can buy lots of cheap MP3 players. The success of this venture certainly has competitors scrambling, including Sony.
Old argument, I'm sure, but I was understanding that the 'Hacking' originated among physicists -- something along the lines of hacking away (with a metaphorical instrument, such as a hatchet or machete) at something until the facts were revealed. My father, who worked at on the Oakridge project, back in the early 40's refered to those who considered themselves 'hackers.'
And Apple's response to Real cracking their iPod and exploiting it to their own ends receives the 2004 'This Comes As A Complete Surprise To Noone' Trophy.
It's like Real have lived under some kind of rock for the past six years. I'm sure they've employed this a few times themselves. Is there a different captain at the helm, oe with a Napoleon hat perhaps?
Of course, it could be argued that Apple is approaching a monopoly status with the iPod and should open it up. Given the dislike others have expressed with Real Networks, they must be truly wrestling with their sentiments on this one.
here have been few books I have read more than once and LOTR is one of them, in fact, I found it completely uninteresting and only made it 3/4 of the way through. It's just not my type of book.
It has been my pleasure - and displeasure at times - to meet people who not simply read the book, but live it. It's my impression LOTR gave rise to D&D games, Society for Creative Anachronism and affect Renaissance Festivals.
I once said, at a Ren Fest: "Why are there so many lords and ladies, but no peasants? Are these people in denial or what?"
In January 1997, reporter Susan Jeffreys of the (London) Sunday Times informed a colleague that J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy "The Lord of the Rings" had been voted the greatest book of the 20th century in a readers' poll...
There have been some truly great works of literature and fiction over the 20th century. I've found myself going back to some and reading them over several times, including Watership Down, which was my first true introduction to fantasy with depth. From my perspective, the Harry Potter series doesn't come close, but is an entertaining yarn, which stunned me when I saw 12 year olds reading 800+ page books. It's promising that people continue to read in an age of diverse video entertainment.
There's a confluence in Germany that's in some farmer's back yard. The people taking the pictures explained what they were doing, and the farmer was totally cool with it. He had no idea there was such a spot near him. The people taking the pictures said he seemed to think that they were a bit eccentric, but amusing in a way.
Put yourself in his place, though. Usually the first visitor is mildly interesting, if not amusing. The 1000th visitor is curtly notified to bugger off.
Speaking of organized samplings... if these guys weren't total nerds, they could have a girlfriend at each confluence! Now *that's* a lot of longitude!
Assuming the girls know about the extra relationships, and are ok with it, that's a lot of latitude!
Some of these are going to be on private property and restricted access (e.g. military) sites. A local GeoCache was on a confluence, but pulled because it was on private property. Probably best to ask permission before tresspassing, lest the intrepid explorer find their butt full of rocksalt or buckshot.
Fiat's electrics are reknowned for being dodgy at best (I own two so I should know;o) ) . Imagine driving a car with Fiat electrics and MS comms...recipe for disaster?!:op --Sarah
What next, Lucas wiring? (note: this is not regarding some motion picture producer, but british auto fans would understand.)
I sure hope the RIAA doesn't look in Bittorrent's direction.
You should know by now that they certainly will, if they could show that ftp was ever used for music piracy they'd go after ftp servers, too. You're concerned that cow actually cares where it takes a dump?
But I maintain that is very old by this point, and is not wearing its age very well. Security problems such as these indicate to me that Microsoft should really just sit down with their code at some point soon and fix what's wrong. IE at the core does have the potential to be a good browser, in that I agree with you, but in its present state, I just think that it's nowhere even close to being good, let alone the best.
As an old programmer, I recognize this as the great hazard of integrating applications into an operating system. Changes to the app require changes to the OS. Change the OS and you should test the app still works. It does get very long of tooth and requiring too much bubble gum and bailing wire to keep going as the becomes ever more fragile. This is why Microsoft, of all people, should have been wary of this practice.
I've been one not to bypass APIs and try tweaking operating systems, file structures, etc. manually as there's always the possibility the feature may cease to work or produce unexpected and disasterous effects. When Microsoft changes the OS the API should still work and largely does for those apps built upon it. All this messing about with the OS, though, when there are dependencies upon dependecies directly connected to the OS is bound to falter.
What Microsoft should do, but probably won't until it becomes excedingly painful (isn't it already? with the Dept of HL Sec. issuing an advisory against using it?) is start over and obey the developer rules they insist everyone else does, but they ignore.
Slighly OT, but underscoring the point I think: Years ago I anticipated with baited breath the arrival of Ultima V for the Amiga. I had an A2000 all decked out with HD, memory, all the toys. Comes the software and I find it behaves really oddly with the keyboard. A few inquiries reveals Origin Systems outsourced the coding to some house in the UK who ignored the APIs and coded to access the keyboard directly. Unfortunately their development platform was the A500, which handled the keyboard differently, thus all other versions had great problems. If they hadn't tried to be so damn clever it would have been a big success as a product and everyone would have been happy. As it was people like me saw red and wanted blood. The platform and software may change, but people still respond the same to betrayal. In this case it's Microsoft who has betrayed the customerbase as well as themselves on a very poor path of development decision making, attempting to outdo their competition.
At what point do we need to shift the focus here and start posting slashdot stories when they find some code in IE that actually works?
IE works, it does some things well. Anyone who remembers many of my posts over the years knows I'm no fan of Microsoft, but their browser does work. Effectively it's not the browser that's broken, but their implementation and bundling. Where Mozilla or Opera are stand alone applications, IE has links directly into the OS which make the vulnerabilities. If Microsoft had simply played by the same rules everyone else had to, there would have been far fewer problems for them and far fewer embarassments for them.
When competitors and gadflies all pissed and moaned about Microsoft playing unfairly with this bundling strategy, which most of their non-directly-Operating-System software is built following, it wasn't the DoJ or courts that should have been listening, but Microsoft themselves.
Perhaps there should be a Darwin Awards for software, awarded to those companies which continually hoist themselves by their own petard.
Attempt to wash circuit boards, unless you have a ready source of de-ionized water, and it's still iffy
Dry sensitive electronic components with a blowdryer with the heat on
Install/remove heatsinks with wrong tools. I nearly chopped one of those tiny resistor packs in half with a cruddy old screwdriver
Let dust accumulate until it looks like the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag
Also, keep an eye on those electrolytic caps, in the past some leaked and caused a real mess.
In other news:
Every now and then Google News does something weird, I thought the combination of heading and article were interesting:
Buy and sell tickets to premium and sold out events
USA Today - 2 hours ago
LOS ANGELES (AP) Actor Marlon Brando was cremated after a private memorial service attended by a small group of family members and friends, his attorney said Wednesday.
I agree. You'll find out how important it is when you don't have any of them...for work purposes anyway. Sounds like management is a little out of touch with reality.
Sounds like an exec is getting a bonus for reducing expenses. Do you want to pay for his/her bonus?
It's understandable if you're in a trade that requires you to bring your own tools to work, but IT work doesn't sound like it, particularly if you read EULAs and take them literally for something you personally bought but use to advance the goals of commercial concern. If it's not in the terms of your employment to provide your own tools, do what I do and say (truthfully in some cases) I don't have it and I'm not buying it with my own money.
Best of luck, hopefully your boss isn't a dickhead and tries to sack you for insubordination.
Slashdot Mirror
Find documents on the web with worms/trojans/virii and open them for you. How thoughtful!
Keep track of your favorite searches, so when it is exploited someone can sell this for marketing
Like the Windows search it will use up about 90% of your CPU while running, because Microsoft still doesn't get the multitasking thing.
Won't have multiple exclusions, so you always waste time searching through directories where you shouldn't be looking.
Will be too ambitious, searching multimedia, etc.
Will focus on Microsoft Friends first, 'inadvertently' avoid Microsoft Enemies ('Honest, we wouldn't have it avoid OSS/Linux/Sun/etc. sites, we'll look into it right away!'
Will be built into all office products, thus bloating them further, introducing more instability and requiring numbnut PHB's to shell big zorkmids to, yet again, upgrade.
You laugh, but Slashdot is complicated and changing all the time (usually by whim, I suspect.) Such enlightening topics which may be covered:
Personal Journal: You personal crap which wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell of getting approved as a story.
Trolls: How to spot one (e.g. Only an idiot would read this chapter)
Microsoft: Once a day the happy way (except in MA,CA,NY and any other state law requires more frequent bad news about the company.)
Stories: Stuff that may or may not be interesting, though the best stuff often dies until a truly bad submission is made, also Dupes.
Moderation: Whyizzit? (e.g. Why did my doctoral dissertation get a Score:5, Funny)
Metamoderation: Your big chance to work for free.
Polls: What they reveal about that little dark spot on your soul (actually it was a smudge on the auragraph)
Offtopic posts: Today's tech and how it relates to your personal beef with G. W. Bush, Kerry, Tea in China, The Jelly Baby tariff in Portugal or that worrying voice coming from under the bed at night.
Slow page loads (Hey, the Tandy 1200 is overclocked, buster!)
Etc. Beowulf clusters, Soviet Russia, CowboyNealism
ObInSovietRussia: Goverment Googles YOU!
Ok, maybe it saves trees or even recycled trees for better use. I personally find using online documentation a massive bother. I shelled for an expensive software package in the past, a few times, only to find no books or even decent installation instructions were included. I like a good copy of reference completely separate from the workstation or laptop. Often I'd like to go find a comfortable place to sit and read, or even read up on something while in line, flying or anywhere else I can make productive used of a few minutes, such as the doctor or dentist. A CD with a manual on it isn't quite going to work. Futher, I waste battery time if I'm trying to learn while on a laptop. Perhaps the best reason of all, though, is because I can put those yellow Post-It notes in the pages I frequently need to return to. A manual for Google? Well, that's not a bad idea, but I think Google has a very simple and intuitive interface. The only thing I think anyone needs to know is how to construct searches properly. Maybe I'm not the audience and the manual is targetted toward someone who hasn't spend their life around computers or written their own search engine (it existed for 5 years where I once worked, the replacement is horrible and I'm sure they paid well for that improvement.) The worst thing about search engines is the 'special knowledge' you need to be savvy. How to avoid being tricked into a site which isn't anything like you are looking for, but has a pile of key words in a header somewhere to get a high Google score. I suppose a book could teach you some of that, but the rest comes with experience.
Sure, but like nature, business and entertainment abhore a vacuum. Windows, the heir to MS/PC-DOS, was widely adopted in the absense of other viable choices. The same game is playing out with music downloads and their players, iTunes may find itself the standard, as everyone will want to be able to share with everyone else (and I don't mean a bunch of tech-geeks, but ordinary people.)
Ah, yeah, just like in the good old days, where a man shat on himself after everyone else had.
By golly, we seem to be heading there again. Probably a book or two on this somewhere.
What are you saying, Britain isn't one of the states?
Damn... when did they secede?
Sources, please. The iPod is hot and sales of iTunes have already hit 100 million downloads. This growth in a relatively small timespan, along with partnerships with Motorola for cell phones, HP for their own portables along with other manufactures for car stereos, etc. suggest Apple is the major player, even if you can buy lots of cheap MP3 players. The success of this venture certainly has competitors scrambling, including Sony.
Old argument, I'm sure, but I was understanding that the 'Hacking' originated among physicists -- something along the lines of hacking away (with a metaphorical instrument, such as a hatchet or machete) at something until the facts were revealed. My father, who worked at on the Oakridge project, back in the early 40's refered to those who considered themselves 'hackers.'
It's like Real have lived under some kind of rock for the past six years. I'm sure they've employed this a few times themselves. Is there a different captain at the helm, oe with a Napoleon hat perhaps?
Of course, it could be argued that Apple is approaching a monopoly status with the iPod and should open it up. Given the dislike others have expressed with Real Networks, they must be truly wrestling with their sentiments on this one.
It has been my pleasure - and displeasure at times - to meet people who not simply read the book, but live it. It's my impression LOTR gave rise to D&D games, Society for Creative Anachronism and affect Renaissance Festivals.
I once said, at a Ren Fest: "Why are there so many lords and ladies, but no peasants? Are these people in denial or what?"
I wonder how they translate to Klingon...
oops, damn, wrong alternate reality!
There have been some truly great works of literature and fiction over the 20th century. I've found myself going back to some and reading them over several times, including Watership Down, which was my first true introduction to fantasy with depth. From my perspective, the Harry Potter series doesn't come close, but is an entertaining yarn, which stunned me when I saw 12 year olds reading 800+ page books. It's promising that people continue to read in an age of diverse video entertainment.
Put yourself in his place, though. Usually the first visitor is mildly interesting, if not amusing. The 1000th visitor is curtly notified to bugger off.
Assuming the girls know about the extra relationships, and are ok with it, that's a lot of latitude!
Some of these are going to be on private property and restricted access (e.g. military) sites. A local GeoCache was on a confluence, but pulled because it was on private property. Probably best to ask permission before tresspassing, lest the intrepid explorer find their butt full of rocksalt or buckshot.
Ooooh! Beef jerky! Rghghgh.. *chomp* *chomp* *gulp* Aahhh!
</Homer>
Hey, has anyone seen our system backup?
<Homer>
D'oh!
</Homer>
Probably because it'll come bundled with a complete government, so you won't need the on in Washington DC, state capitol, etc.
Those guys up in Redmond are so thoughtful, but what happens when the first security hole is found?
Rated [R] for "Rip Off"
What next, Lucas wiring? (note: this is not regarding some motion picture producer, but british auto fans would understand.)
Too bad the name DODGE has already been taken.
You should know by now that they certainly will, if they could show that ftp was ever used for music piracy they'd go after ftp servers, too. You're concerned that cow actually cares where it takes a dump?
As an old programmer, I recognize this as the great hazard of integrating applications into an operating system. Changes to the app require changes to the OS. Change the OS and you should test the app still works. It does get very long of tooth and requiring too much bubble gum and bailing wire to keep going as the becomes ever more fragile. This is why Microsoft, of all people, should have been wary of this practice.
I've been one not to bypass APIs and try tweaking operating systems, file structures, etc. manually as there's always the possibility the feature may cease to work or produce unexpected and disasterous effects. When Microsoft changes the OS the API should still work and largely does for those apps built upon it. All this messing about with the OS, though, when there are dependencies upon dependecies directly connected to the OS is bound to falter.
What Microsoft should do, but probably won't until it becomes excedingly painful (isn't it already? with the Dept of HL Sec. issuing an advisory against using it?) is start over and obey the developer rules they insist everyone else does, but they ignore.
Slighly OT, but underscoring the point I think: Years ago I anticipated with baited breath the arrival of Ultima V for the Amiga. I had an A2000 all decked out with HD, memory, all the toys. Comes the software and I find it behaves really oddly with the keyboard. A few inquiries reveals Origin Systems outsourced the coding to some house in the UK who ignored the APIs and coded to access the keyboard directly. Unfortunately their development platform was the A500, which handled the keyboard differently, thus all other versions had great problems. If they hadn't tried to be so damn clever it would have been a big success as a product and everyone would have been happy. As it was people like me saw red and wanted blood. The platform and software may change, but people still respond the same to betrayal. In this case it's Microsoft who has betrayed the customerbase as well as themselves on a very poor path of development decision making, attempting to outdo their competition.
IE works, it does some things well. Anyone who remembers many of my posts over the years knows I'm no fan of Microsoft, but their browser does work. Effectively it's not the browser that's broken, but their implementation and bundling. Where Mozilla or Opera are stand alone applications, IE has links directly into the OS which make the vulnerabilities. If Microsoft had simply played by the same rules everyone else had to, there would have been far fewer problems for them and far fewer embarassments for them.
When competitors and gadflies all pissed and moaned about Microsoft playing unfairly with this bundling strategy, which most of their non-directly-Operating-System software is built following, it wasn't the DoJ or courts that should have been listening, but Microsoft themselves.
Perhaps there should be a Darwin Awards for software, awarded to those companies which continually hoist themselves by their own petard.
Eat while working on PCs
Attempt to wash circuit boards, unless you have a ready source of de-ionized water, and it's still iffy
Dry sensitive electronic components with a blowdryer with the heat on
Install/remove heatsinks with wrong tools. I nearly chopped one of those tiny resistor packs in half with a cruddy old screwdriver
Let dust accumulate until it looks like the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag
Also, keep an eye on those electrolytic caps, in the past some leaked and caused a real mess.
In other news:
Every now and then Google News does something weird, I thought the combination of heading and article were interesting:
Sounds like an exec is getting a bonus for reducing expenses. Do you want to pay for his/her bonus?
It's understandable if you're in a trade that requires you to bring your own tools to work, but IT work doesn't sound like it, particularly if you read EULAs and take them literally for something you personally bought but use to advance the goals of commercial concern. If it's not in the terms of your employment to provide your own tools, do what I do and say (truthfully in some cases) I don't have it and I'm not buying it with my own money.
Best of luck, hopefully your boss isn't a dickhead and tries to sack you for insubordination.