A couple of months ago I had a machine start act weirdly. When you logged in and walked away, it would lock up solid after a few minutes. No video signal, nothing. Not a BSOD, just mojo lock-up. When doing certain things it would also lock up, but not always. For about a week or so I thought it was a problem with DirectX or something like that.
Then I noticed that when it didn't lock and I managed to shut it down normally I'd get the "It's now safe to turn off your computer" thing. This is an Abit mobo with an ATX power supply running Windows XP, so that sort of tipped me off that there was probably a problem with the power supply.
I opened it up and wiggled the ATX connector a bit, then tested the box. No lock ups, nothing. One week went by and no problems.
It turns out the ATX connector was probably jostled when I put in a DVD/RW and one of the leads got detached. As far as I could tell, when the box reached a certain temperature, it would disconnect and the whole thing would go down.
I just resoldered the one lead, and that was that.
My point is that if you have decently mainstream hardware with good drivers, patch Windows regularly and you're careful not to crap up the registry by installing shit you don't need, Windows will run absolutely fine. My last machine at work typically went 60-70 days without a reboot; it was restarted only to apply patches or whatever. For three years, this W2K machine was abused 10-12 hours a day and never once did it lock up, die, bluescreen or otherwise fail in any way shape or form.
My current workstation is server 2003 standard and it's been performing the same way until now. My primary home box simply is not turned off, ever, except to patch.
You can fuck up any OS just as readily as you can Windows any day if you try hard enough. Or you can be careful and have zero problems other than the occasional mobo connector going stupid.
Way to go, this is a fantastic argument to use to get people to switch. When was the last time I saw one of those... hmmm. Let's see. Since 1998 when I switched to NT4 and later through W2K, XP and 2003 (yes, as a desktop) on literally dozens of machines, I've seen four blue screens, and they were all on the same W2K box (the one I use for gaming and crap). Two were caused by stupid Creative drivers, and I forget what caused the other two.
Yeah, four blue screens in (I guess) hundreds of thousands of hours of operation on multiple machines is a definite reason to switch to Linux. I'm sold.
Really, I'd like to know what kind of moron equates Windoze security with free software's.
I don't know. Not the same that thinks a user won't follow instructions (instructions) to execute a worm because he happens to be running Leenucks, that's for sure. Oh look, we're back on topic.
Never mind twitter, just go back to your routine. You're a waste of time.
Nothing but their explicit denial. Go figure, that's like a M$ apologist.
You ridiculous penguin-humping retard. Did you RTFA? No, you didn't. Did you figure out what it is they're outsorcing? No, you didn't. Did you know that they've been outsorcing a lot of stuff to Wipro and the like for years now, just like any other large IT firm (check on your IBM sweetheart, ask me sometime what they did with Amex) and this is just more of the same, except that Bashdork took the chance to post some FUD to the front page? No, of course not. Other than the WebTV or XBox Japan divisions, would you like to post a link to stories of Microsoft firing developers and other staff based in the US because of things like these? Go on, surprise me.
But to you this is just another chance to say "M$" and "Windoze", as if that didn't make you look stupid enough, and then call everyone and their moms "trolls", "apologists" and "astroturfers" because they don't snap and lock to attention at the mere sight of your pathetic crack-induced ideals.
I feel like the motivational fairy in the Dilbert cartoon, finding Wally and exclaiming "Wally?? Waahhh, I thought you were a myth!" I honestly didn't think someone so fucked up as you could even exist, yet here you are posting away with abandon and "telling it like it is".
Awww, holy shit, I even feel dirty at even replying to your posts. I should have never gone looking through your posting history. I need a bath.
Quoth the article (which very few people will bother to read):
Much of the work involves testing, preparing user guides and building specialized tools. One of the Infosys projects is a guide for customers switching from an Oracle database to a Microsoft database.
Now, here's what happens:
d00d did you hear the latest about M$?
what?
they're outsorcing most of their development work to Inidia d00d!!
really???
no shiet. I saw it on Slashdot. Windoze is being written in India and like.NOT and Yukon and stuff!!
OLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!
Selective quoting and intentionally misleading write-ups. FUD, plain and simple. You whine when Microsoft does it to you, but you have no problem whatsoever in doing it to them.
The problem now is that because someone has now complained about the color scheme, the "editors" will never change it. Ever. Because someone complained. That would be seen as giving into "lame complaints" and a big no-no.
It's a pattern that repeats itself every time the "editors" dick around with the fucking productions servers like this was still their little blog running on a 486 under their desks instead of a "serious" site that sells subscriptions and advertising and is supposed to make money for a company.
Well, at least now they can't use the "you're more than welcome to ask for your money back" witty retort because some people (like you) actually pay for it. Hey, if anything you do have the right to complain - except that there is nowhere to do that. So I think you'll be modded down "offtopic" (or better yet, overrated) and put in one of their blacklists.
No, I meant I'd like you to address my response to your dishonest FUD.
I'm really sorry twitter but I don't see how my box getting rooted (that happen to you often?) and spewing spam ("malice"?) or my ISP ("nasty little boxes"?) have to do with that.
The Windows design philosophy is "since most people only use a program a little bit from time to time, you can sell more stuff to more people by making it easy to learn and not caring if it is harder to use that way."
I do a lot of things with Windows; it occasionally gets in my way but then Linux does as well.
Surely you don't suggest that "the Unix way" is the One True Way to use a computer. Microsoft has given consumers what they want using the design philosophy you mention, and it has largely worked for them and everyone else.
Windows is not Unix, it's not a "hackers" or hobbyist OS. Nor is it a server OS turned into a desktop environment in spite of itself. It's just different. That doesn't necessarily mean it is better or worse.
Here's what most people (and I include myself there) think: the Lynch movie captured the "look and feel" of the first book but took too many liberties with the story (nee "weirding modules"). The SciFi series on the other hand had a better chance of doing it well because of the format and alloted time and thuse were closer to the story, but pooched the look and feel - the atmosphere if you will. The wardrobe was ridiculous, the sets were anemic and the actors sucked for the most part. For example, Stilgar as a wheezing old man just didn't cut it for most folks.
In the case of LOTR, while the books are extremely complex and do have a lot of subtext, the basic structure and story is pretty straightforward. As in the case of Dune, though, it seems that a lot contained in the books isn't completely spelled out
I agree to a certain extent with you here, but at the same time I think that Dune could have been synthesized well enough to do a good three movies (certainly not just one). To truly understand the ideas behind Dune you need to read out to at least God Emperor; this is where (IMO) the story deviates into the whole concept of the "Golden Path": saving humanity in spite of itself. The next three books deal with the consecuences of that course of action.
So theoretically you could have written three screenplays that capture the essence of the first four books well enough. I don't doubt it can be done, it's just that nobody has until now. I don't think LOTR was that simple to get into a screenplay, really. LOTR is really five complicated books =)
I realized I hated Paul Atriedes
My interpretation of this Dune character has always been the classic "good guy trapped by circumstances beyond his control". There are many examples of this in real history but the unique thing about Dune is the so-called "butterfly effect" that radiates from this single desperate man. Eventually all of humanity is affected by his choices and actions.
Have you read all the first four books? Specifically Dune Messiah does a better job at explaining him. But again, if you really want to understand you need to read through at least God Emperor.
I believe Frank Herbert was also initially panned by the critics. Actually I think this mentioned on Bill O'Reilly's Herbert essay (which is very good, in case you've never read it and are a fan of the Dune series or FH's other work, like the Pandora trilogy).
LOTR is rather heavy reading and honestly not for everyone. I think the movies did a good job of presenting the ideas and plot of the books, limited as the movie format is to begin with.
I just wish someone would do a decent billion-dollar series of 3 hour movies based on the Dune books. The original Dune movie was OK but short and a bit hokey, and the SciFi series were absolutely terrible. But Dune is not considered "hip" like LOTR, I suppose.
You are apparently fixated on imagining my sexual behavior,
Don't flatter yourself.
a reasonable question.
If you're going to lie, then be prepared to be called on your lies. Learn to deal with that and suck it up. Otherwise stop posting crap.
Can you write a backup domain controller
That's fucking ridiculous. "bwaaahhh, i want teh openn standards and read teh codez bwaaahhhh". So let's see - the DOC format is also a hidden API? You don't even know what you're talking about. You've gone from hidden APIs to proprietary interoperation. Why in hell would they let you do something like that? Just to refresh your feverish zealot mind: this is not Leenucks, OK? Only Microsoft can write domain controllers for their stupid networks. Go complain to Novell and IBM about this stupid "example" of "hidden APIs" and get back to me, you lunatic fuck.
Now, let's see a real link, one where your claim of SQL Server using hidden APIs is exposed as the evil it is.
And you're a blabbering Leenucks Fanatic Zealot and all that, well, whatever. I mean, I just read through this whole sorry thread of yours and it's obvious you have some issues there.
you fail to debunk the Excel API I generously produced to meet your nasty demands.
Mmmkay, an AC said that, not you. Pay attention now. You generously provided jack shit except some claim that SQL Server uses undocumented APIs to work faster and then provided exactly nothing to back up that claim. I can't see a single fucking supporting link on any of your posts so far. Perhaps you'd like to provide some now. And because I'm not going to contest that Microsoft did that at some point (though certainly not for the reasons you seem to champion) then provide one, ONE FUCKING LINK to ONE SINGLE PAGE that proves your claims. It's stupidly easy to load any Windows binary into a debugger (or just dump it) and see what the fuck it happens to be calling. You should know this, since you're so astoundingly smart. Common sense says someone out there already did this to prove that Microsoft is evil. Let's see it, Einstein.
Then you bring us more secret Microsoft APIs
Holy shit, you really didn't know about that, did you? My god. I guess you're really on top of this whole topic, eh? How does it feel to stand there holding your dick while drooling copiously?
I again ask, rationally, merely whether the new source code can be used to investigate the possiblity that Microsoft continues these actions
Thousands of people around the world have access to this code, and it was already leaked once. You think someone would have already figured out if your pathetic claims are actually true and gone what-the-fuck "here they are!! i found the evil M$ hidden APIS!!!!1!" by now?
You just show how little your "argument" has going for it
Well then again, provide some fucking proof. I'm not asking you to prove a negative here, mmm? C'mon, let's see it.
The problem is that your retarded argument of "bwaaaahhh if I can't see teh codez then they must be doing evil M$ things with teh codez" is supremely stupid because it's impossible to prove a negative. But surely you know this, since you're so astoundingly smart. So let's see some backing evidence to your claims. Otherwise go back to jerking off to that picture of Dickie Stallman on your desk.
If it really works like this then that is even dumber than I thought.
No, sorry. I wasn't clear enough. If you have extensions turned off it will show you "info.doc.exe" as "info.doc" but it will still block it if it's set up to to that.
And yes, normal users hate this too.
No in my experience, they don't. They like it. Now I personally couldn't care less for the things, but I don't need them in any way. Of course I can't generalize that; it's only my personal experience.
Things that are hard to learn are usually hard to learn because you are preloading the difficulties inherent in the task into a do-once thing that you do up front, in exchange for not having to do them later.
Well, yes. And that's why people like Windows. Are you saying that's actually bad?? I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not - for an average user it's significantly more difficult to scan a picture in Windows 2000 than in XP, because the former does not have a wizard that does that. That doesn't mean you cannot do it; it's just more "complicated". There are hundreds of examples of that in Windows. Find and install a printer, use your digital camera, set up a domain, create a dial-up connection, etc. In many ways this is what Microsoft uses as an example of why an extra $49 bucks on a new box is nothing compared to what you get, as opposed to Linux. I tend to agree.
But to get back to topic, yes, when you turn off extensions and do things like that you're sacrificing security for ease of use and expanding your attack surfaces. Again, good enough idea and intentions, bad results.
Ahhh. The mark of the Paranoid Leenucks Zealot. You wouldn't happen to be related to my friend twitter, would you?
let's see you debunk the accepted record
I don't see how I can prove a negative, and I sure as hell haven't seen anything that approaches an "accepted record". The "hidden APIs" thing is just another one of those myths you wonderful people like to repeat and spread.
If you had a few more usable brain cells you would have figured out that undocumented != hidden, and that undocumented doesn't mean jack shit. Or do you think someone brighter than you already ran Word or Excel through a profiler to see which of the "hidden APIs" they call? Maybe you're hopelessly confused by things like these, which are not "hidden APIs" but undocumented things that you're not supposed to use, although you're more than free to do so if you figure them out, like Mark Russinovich and other people already did.
The fun comes when companies play stupid tricks with the native API and kernel-level functions (no doubt with Russinovich's book in hand) instead of with the goddamn published API - next version of Windows comes around and because the kernel people changed something (as they should have the damn right to do; that's why there's a fucking layer on top of it), the assholes that thought they were so cool to call NtCreateFile() directly are screwed. So that must be proof that Microsoft is evil!
If you're referring to the "Settlement APIs" that Microsoft recently published, here's a newsflash: Those were figured out fucking ages ago. Their ordinals in the system DLLs located, methods and structures and flags worked out by people (again) brighter than you. There's an entire class of these functions that are nothing more than fucking shortcuts to well-documented interfaces. Their existence has never been denied by Microsoft, and in fact you can even find some in examples used in the knowledgebase. The only thing Microsoft did was say "look, these are not documented because we might remove them later from the system. Use them at your own risk, or write your own wrappers". These are the only things al those bright Netscape engineers could find after digging around for a year, and they pointed at them as evidence of Microsoft's evil practices. So they were published and Microsoft was immediately forced to provide support for them (real support, you know, not in IRC). Well there you go. Now, given that you're so obviously intelligent I'd like to have your opinion as to what exactly in that list would give Microsoft a competitive advantage - especially considering almost all of those functions were already known in the developer community. Oh, and remember that there are about 30,000 APIs in Windows.
Shit. You know, I suppose the fact that Oracle and the Sun Java VM run fucking faster on Windows than on Unix (not to mention the fact that Oracle is a far better database than SQL Server) proves that Microsoft has all these hidden APIs working for them as well to crush their competitors. Why didn't I think of that before.
Jesus H. Christ, you people are quite the piece of work. All promethean and chest-thumping martyrs when it suits you but perfectly able to turn into bottom-scraping offal whenever you're desperately trying to spread some FUD about Microsoft or anyone/anything else you hate.
As an intelligent adult, I understand that since Microsoft criminally competed with other developers using a secret API in the past, and have no reason to change
Cite a valid source, or stop quoting your wet dreams. Until then, keep your adolescent rethoric to yourself.
We all have a reason, their past performance, to believe they might be doing it again.
Since someone who is related to FOSS recently engaged in astroturfing (JBoss) then I must conclude that everyone is doing it. Or will be doing it.
Since one of the first Linux-related companies turned out to be a fucking pyramid scheme of cosmic proportions (Linuxcare) then I must conclude that they are all the same. Or will be.
Since RedHat 6.2 was such a pathetic piece of unadulterated crap then I must conclude that 9.0 is the same. And so will all the future versions. Oh, and Fedora as well. Kinda like the "Windoze sux" argument from people who last used it in 1996.
Since such an ungodly number of slashbots are obviously retarded and not out of puberty yet, I must conclude that you are as well. Or will be.
No, it does not. It follows the user's display preferences. If you turn off extension display then Outlook will show them to you.
The problem is the exact opposite - the LACK of a distinction between them in Windows. [...] Nothing about them was ever a good idea in the first place.
Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. Most inexperienced Windows users benefited from this 'feature', regardless of whether you and everyone else who knows how a computer works thinks thats the case or not. OTOH, of course in retrospect it was probably a bad idea from a security standpoint, though one could argue that perhaps the mail client(s) should have been made safer to begin with regardless of a shell setting. This is the same as the Office paperclip mascot - a good idea that the technical community dismissed as stupid but many users found helpful. Normal users don't think in terms of "OMFG how many lines of code did M$ put into this stupid cartoon, they should have fixed mail merge instead LOLOLOL!!!!!"
What Microsoft did was push for ease of learning being more important than ease of use
That's dumb. Anything is easy to use once you've climbed the learning curve. People use Emacs every day, right? Microsoft simply flattened the learning curve, that's all.
And, no they aren't paying for it - their users are.
Actually we all are; I get about 50 worm emails per day, every day.
Look, ass, I've seen the environment I'm talking about first hand.
Interesting. You seem to dismiss offhand as "trolling" and "astroturfing" any experience that does not condemn Microsoft software as hopelessly insecure, yet I must take yours as prima facie evidence of the very same thing. I suppose you expect everyone to extrapolate your run-in with a dumb admin at a company who can't get their shit together and apply it to the hundreds of thousands of people who happily run Exchange, and all the millions who use Windows (or "Windoze"), Office, etc. How telling.
Well, in fact, I must not exist as far as you're concerned, because I run just about any piece of Microsoft software you can think of and I've never in 12 or so years been infected, 0wn3d, rooted, hacked or otherwise screwed against my will. Heck, I think the last time I saw a virus in one of my machines it was called "Pong" and came on a floppy. Surely this is impossible; therefore I must be lying. And you must be right, because you run software that is perfect and has no vulnerabilities whatsoever. It never needs patching. It has no errors. It also, apparently, magically make its users more intelligent and alert and raises their IQ to three-digit levels. Users of "free software" actually read dialogs before clicking OK. Why? Because they're running KDE, that's why! Yay!
But they are not executables and they won't run.
A bash or Python script coming out of a tar file with the execute bit set seems plenty runnable to me. Which is the gist of this particular worm. Stay on topic and try again.
Making email clients block executables is not problematic - Outlook and it's crippled little brother Outlook Express already do that by default. That will prevent you from simply running them (vs. as you say "opening").
Worm writers figured this out long ago, and now you get a ZIP file, which, again, is sometimes password protected. Would you write an email client that blocks ZIP and TAR.GZ files? Or look inside them and block if the're an executable inside? Of course not. Yet people get infected by these all the time. I simply cannot see how you would get around a user that is determined enough to open "SecretDocuments.zip" and run the executable or script inside. I don't care what OS you're using.
The distinction between a document and an executable in Windows is a good idea turned bad, as is the fact that extensions are hidden by default. Applications don't have a problem seeing the extension; it's just a display setting. So yes, "document.doc.exe" looks to the user like a Word document. Still, the point is that people should not have to be aware of that distinction. Theory vs. practice. Now we get into ease of use and "OOB experience" vs. something that needs to be fought to the death to work as expected. I sure as heck don't have a solution to these problems because I don't write and sell operating systems. Or give them away. Still, people deride Microsoft's design choices as if they were made on whims - they made a call in the name of usability and now they're paying for it. Tough shit. Good intentions, bad results. It doesn't mean it won't happen to another OS, especially when you start feeling the pressure to make it easier to use.
Slashdot Mirror
Then I noticed that when it didn't lock and I managed to shut it down normally I'd get the "It's now safe to turn off your computer" thing. This is an Abit mobo with an ATX power supply running Windows XP, so that sort of tipped me off that there was probably a problem with the power supply.
I opened it up and wiggled the ATX connector a bit, then tested the box. No lock ups, nothing. One week went by and no problems.
It turns out the ATX connector was probably jostled when I put in a DVD/RW and one of the leads got detached. As far as I could tell, when the box reached a certain temperature, it would disconnect and the whole thing would go down.
I just resoldered the one lead, and that was that.
My point is that if you have decently mainstream hardware with good drivers, patch Windows regularly and you're careful not to crap up the registry by installing shit you don't need, Windows will run absolutely fine. My last machine at work typically went 60-70 days without a reboot; it was restarted only to apply patches or whatever. For three years, this W2K machine was abused 10-12 hours a day and never once did it lock up, die, bluescreen or otherwise fail in any way shape or form.
My current workstation is server 2003 standard and it's been performing the same way until now. My primary home box simply is not turned off, ever, except to patch.
You can fuck up any OS just as readily as you can Windows any day if you try hard enough. Or you can be careful and have zero problems other than the occasional mobo connector going stupid.
I hear ya. Maybe the version of ncurses you were running couldn't render blue.
Way to go, this is a fantastic argument to use to get people to switch. When was the last time I saw one of those... hmmm. Let's see. Since 1998 when I switched to NT4 and later through W2K, XP and 2003 (yes, as a desktop) on literally dozens of machines, I've seen four blue screens, and they were all on the same W2K box (the one I use for gaming and crap). Two were caused by stupid Creative drivers, and I forget what caused the other two.
Yeah, four blue screens in (I guess) hundreds of thousands of hours of operation on multiple machines is a definite reason to switch to Linux. I'm sold.
No, I would not. Don't be fucking stupid, please.
Really, I'd like to know what kind of moron equates Windoze security with free software's.
I don't know. Not the same that thinks a user won't follow instructions (instructions) to execute a worm because he happens to be running Leenucks, that's for sure. Oh look, we're back on topic.
Never mind twitter, just go back to your routine. You're a waste of time.
Have a great life and all that.
You ridiculous penguin-humping retard. Did you RTFA? No, you didn't. Did you figure out what it is they're outsorcing? No, you didn't. Did you know that they've been outsorcing a lot of stuff to Wipro and the like for years now, just like any other large IT firm (check on your IBM sweetheart, ask me sometime what they did with Amex) and this is just more of the same, except that Bashdork took the chance to post some FUD to the front page? No, of course not. Other than the WebTV or XBox Japan divisions, would you like to post a link to stories of Microsoft firing developers and other staff based in the US because of things like these? Go on, surprise me.
But to you this is just another chance to say "M$" and "Windoze", as if that didn't make you look stupid enough, and then call everyone and their moms "trolls", "apologists" and "astroturfers" because they don't snap and lock to attention at the mere sight of your pathetic crack-induced ideals.
I feel like the motivational fairy in the Dilbert cartoon, finding Wally and exclaiming "Wally?? Waahhh, I thought you were a myth!" I honestly didn't think someone so fucked up as you could even exist, yet here you are posting away with abandon and "telling it like it is".
Awww, holy shit, I even feel dirty at even replying to your posts. I should have never gone looking through your posting history. I need a bath.
- d00d did you hear the latest about M$?
- what?
- they're outsorcing most of their development work to Inidia d00d!!
- really???
- no shiet. I saw it on Slashdot. Windoze is being written in India and like
.NOT and Yukon and stuff!!
- OLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!
Selective quoting and intentionally misleading write-ups. FUD, plain and simple. You whine when Microsoft does it to you, but you have no problem whatsoever in doing it to them.It's a pattern that repeats itself every time the "editors" dick around with the fucking productions servers like this was still their little blog running on a 486 under their desks instead of a "serious" site that sells subscriptions and advertising and is supposed to make money for a company.
Well, at least now they can't use the "you're more than welcome to ask for your money back" witty retort because some people (like you) actually pay for it. Hey, if anything you do have the right to complain - except that there is nowhere to do that. So I think you'll be modded down "offtopic" (or better yet, overrated) and put in one of their blacklists.
Welcome to Slashdot!
Do you realize you posted a link to one of those posts that actually got moderated up?? Heh. That's too funny. Did you notice you even have new fans?
I really like this one. I wonder who's really deserving of the "troll" label. You're probably worse than the authentic trolls.
I'm really sorry twitter but I don't see how my box getting rooted (that happen to you often?) and spewing spam ("malice"?) or my ISP ("nasty little boxes"?) have to do with that.
Thanks.
I do a lot of things with Windows; it occasionally gets in my way but then Linux does as well.
Surely you don't suggest that "the Unix way" is the One True Way to use a computer. Microsoft has given consumers what they want using the design philosophy you mention, and it has largely worked for them and everyone else.
Windows is not Unix, it's not a "hackers" or hobbyist OS. Nor is it a server OS turned into a desktop environment in spite of itself. It's just different. That doesn't necessarily mean it is better or worse.
Anyway, we were wondering when you were going to get back to us.
Thanks.
Here's what most people (and I include myself there) think: the Lynch movie captured the "look and feel" of the first book but took too many liberties with the story (nee "weirding modules"). The SciFi series on the other hand had a better chance of doing it well because of the format and alloted time and thuse were closer to the story, but pooched the look and feel - the atmosphere if you will. The wardrobe was ridiculous, the sets were anemic and the actors sucked for the most part. For example, Stilgar as a wheezing old man just didn't cut it for most folks.
In the case of LOTR, while the books are extremely complex and do have a lot of subtext, the basic structure and story is pretty straightforward. As in the case of Dune, though, it seems that a lot contained in the books isn't completely spelled out
I agree to a certain extent with you here, but at the same time I think that Dune could have been synthesized well enough to do a good three movies (certainly not just one). To truly understand the ideas behind Dune you need to read out to at least God Emperor; this is where (IMO) the story deviates into the whole concept of the "Golden Path": saving humanity in spite of itself. The next three books deal with the consecuences of that course of action.
So theoretically you could have written three screenplays that capture the essence of the first four books well enough. I don't doubt it can be done, it's just that nobody has until now. I don't think LOTR was that simple to get into a screenplay, really. LOTR is really five complicated books =)
I realized I hated Paul Atriedes
My interpretation of this Dune character has always been the classic "good guy trapped by circumstances beyond his control". There are many examples of this in real history but the unique thing about Dune is the so-called "butterfly effect" that radiates from this single desperate man. Eventually all of humanity is affected by his choices and actions.
Have you read all the first four books? Specifically Dune Messiah does a better job at explaining him. But again, if you really want to understand you need to read through at least God Emperor.
LOTR is rather heavy reading and honestly not for everyone. I think the movies did a good job of presenting the ideas and plot of the books, limited as the movie format is to begin with.
I just wish someone would do a decent billion-dollar series of 3 hour movies based on the Dune books. The original Dune movie was OK but short and a bit hokey, and the SciFi series were absolutely terrible. But Dune is not considered "hip" like LOTR, I suppose.
I thought so. Thanks for playing.
Don't flatter yourself.
a reasonable question.
If you're going to lie, then be prepared to be called on your lies. Learn to deal with that and suck it up. Otherwise stop posting crap.
Can you write a backup domain controller
That's fucking ridiculous. "bwaaahhh, i want teh openn standards and read teh codez bwaaahhhh". So let's see - the DOC format is also a hidden API? You don't even know what you're talking about. You've gone from hidden APIs to proprietary interoperation. Why in hell would they let you do something like that? Just to refresh your feverish zealot mind: this is not Leenucks, OK? Only Microsoft can write domain controllers for their stupid networks. Go complain to Novell and IBM about this stupid "example" of "hidden APIs" and get back to me, you lunatic fuck.
Now, let's see a real link, one where your claim of SQL Server using hidden APIs is exposed as the evil it is.
And you're a blabbering Leenucks Fanatic Zealot and all that, well, whatever. I mean, I just read through this whole sorry thread of yours and it's obvious you have some issues there.
you fail to debunk the Excel API I generously produced to meet your nasty demands.
Mmmkay, an AC said that, not you. Pay attention now. You generously provided jack shit except some claim that SQL Server uses undocumented APIs to work faster and then provided exactly nothing to back up that claim. I can't see a single fucking supporting link on any of your posts so far. Perhaps you'd like to provide some now. And because I'm not going to contest that Microsoft did that at some point (though certainly not for the reasons you seem to champion) then provide one, ONE FUCKING LINK to ONE SINGLE PAGE that proves your claims. It's stupidly easy to load any Windows binary into a debugger (or just dump it) and see what the fuck it happens to be calling. You should know this, since you're so astoundingly smart. Common sense says someone out there already did this to prove that Microsoft is evil. Let's see it, Einstein.
Then you bring us more secret Microsoft APIs
Holy shit, you really didn't know about that, did you? My god. I guess you're really on top of this whole topic, eh? How does it feel to stand there holding your dick while drooling copiously?
I again ask, rationally, merely whether the new source code can be used to investigate the possiblity that Microsoft continues these actions
Thousands of people around the world have access to this code, and it was already leaked once. You think someone would have already figured out if your pathetic claims are actually true and gone what-the-fuck "here they are!! i found the evil M$ hidden APIS!!!!1!" by now?
You just show how little your "argument" has going for it
Well then again, provide some fucking proof. I'm not asking you to prove a negative here, mmm? C'mon, let's see it.
The problem is that your retarded argument of "bwaaaahhh if I can't see teh codez then they must be doing evil M$ things with teh codez" is supremely stupid because it's impossible to prove a negative. But surely you know this, since you're so astoundingly smart. So let's see some backing evidence to your claims. Otherwise go back to jerking off to that picture of Dickie Stallman on your desk.
No, sorry. I wasn't clear enough. If you have extensions turned off it will show you "info.doc.exe" as "info.doc" but it will still block it if it's set up to to that.
And yes, normal users hate this too.
No in my experience, they don't. They like it. Now I personally couldn't care less for the things, but I don't need them in any way. Of course I can't generalize that; it's only my personal experience.
Things that are hard to learn are usually hard to learn because you are preloading the difficulties inherent in the task into a do-once thing that you do up front, in exchange for not having to do them later.
Well, yes. And that's why people like Windows. Are you saying that's actually bad?? I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not - for an average user it's significantly more difficult to scan a picture in Windows 2000 than in XP, because the former does not have a wizard that does that. That doesn't mean you cannot do it; it's just more "complicated". There are hundreds of examples of that in Windows. Find and install a printer, use your digital camera, set up a domain, create a dial-up connection, etc. In many ways this is what Microsoft uses as an example of why an extra $49 bucks on a new box is nothing compared to what you get, as opposed to Linux. I tend to agree.
But to get back to topic, yes, when you turn off extensions and do things like that you're sacrificing security for ease of use and expanding your attack surfaces. Again, good enough idea and intentions, bad results.
Ahhh. The mark of the Paranoid Leenucks Zealot. You wouldn't happen to be related to my friend twitter, would you?
let's see you debunk the accepted record
I don't see how I can prove a negative, and I sure as hell haven't seen anything that approaches an "accepted record". The "hidden APIs" thing is just another one of those myths you wonderful people like to repeat and spread.
If you had a few more usable brain cells you would have figured out that undocumented != hidden, and that undocumented doesn't mean jack shit. Or do you think someone brighter than you already ran Word or Excel through a profiler to see which of the "hidden APIs" they call? Maybe you're hopelessly confused by things like these, which are not "hidden APIs" but undocumented things that you're not supposed to use, although you're more than free to do so if you figure them out, like Mark Russinovich and other people already did.
The fun comes when companies play stupid tricks with the native API and kernel-level functions (no doubt with Russinovich's book in hand) instead of with the goddamn published API - next version of Windows comes around and because the kernel people changed something (as they should have the damn right to do; that's why there's a fucking layer on top of it), the assholes that thought they were so cool to call NtCreateFile() directly are screwed. So that must be proof that Microsoft is evil!
If you're referring to the "Settlement APIs" that Microsoft recently published, here's a newsflash: Those were figured out fucking ages ago. Their ordinals in the system DLLs located, methods and structures and flags worked out by people (again) brighter than you. There's an entire class of these functions that are nothing more than fucking shortcuts to well-documented interfaces. Their existence has never been denied by Microsoft, and in fact you can even find some in examples used in the knowledgebase. The only thing Microsoft did was say "look, these are not documented because we might remove them later from the system. Use them at your own risk, or write your own wrappers". These are the only things al those bright Netscape engineers could find after digging around for a year, and they pointed at them as evidence of Microsoft's evil practices. So they were published and Microsoft was immediately forced to provide support for them (real support, you know, not in IRC). Well there you go. Now, given that you're so obviously intelligent I'd like to have your opinion as to what exactly in that list would give Microsoft a competitive advantage - especially considering almost all of those functions were already known in the developer community. Oh, and remember that there are about 30,000 APIs in Windows.
Shit. You know, I suppose the fact that Oracle and the Sun Java VM run fucking faster on Windows than on Unix (not to mention the fact that Oracle is a far better database than SQL Server) proves that Microsoft has all these hidden APIs working for them as well to crush their competitors. Why didn't I think of that before.
Jesus H. Christ, you people are quite the piece of work. All promethean and chest-thumping martyrs when it suits you but perfectly able to turn into bottom-scraping offal whenever you're desperately trying to spread some FUD about Microsoft or anyone/anything else you hate.
Cite a valid source, or stop quoting your wet dreams. Until then, keep your adolescent rethoric to yourself.
Since someone who is related to FOSS recently engaged in astroturfing (JBoss) then I must conclude that everyone is doing it. Or will be doing it.
Since one of the first Linux-related companies turned out to be a fucking pyramid scheme of cosmic proportions (Linuxcare) then I must conclude that they are all the same. Or will be.
Since RedHat 6.2 was such a pathetic piece of unadulterated crap then I must conclude that 9.0 is the same. And so will all the future versions. Oh, and Fedora as well. Kinda like the "Windoze sux" argument from people who last used it in 1996.
Since such an ungodly number of slashbots are obviously retarded and not out of puberty yet, I must conclude that you are as well. Or will be.
There's some perspective for you.
No, it does not. It follows the user's display preferences. If you turn off extension display then Outlook will show them to you.
The problem is the exact opposite - the LACK of a distinction between them in Windows. [...] Nothing about them was ever a good idea in the first place.
Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. Most inexperienced Windows users benefited from this 'feature', regardless of whether you and everyone else who knows how a computer works thinks thats the case or not. OTOH, of course in retrospect it was probably a bad idea from a security standpoint, though one could argue that perhaps the mail client(s) should have been made safer to begin with regardless of a shell setting. This is the same as the Office paperclip mascot - a good idea that the technical community dismissed as stupid but many users found helpful. Normal users don't think in terms of "OMFG how many lines of code did M$ put into this stupid cartoon, they should have fixed mail merge instead LOLOLOL!!!!!"
What Microsoft did was push for ease of learning being more important than ease of use
That's dumb. Anything is easy to use once you've climbed the learning curve. People use Emacs every day, right? Microsoft simply flattened the learning curve, that's all.
And, no they aren't paying for it - their users are.
Actually we all are; I get about 50 worm emails per day, every day.
Interesting. You seem to dismiss offhand as "trolling" and "astroturfing" any experience that does not condemn Microsoft software as hopelessly insecure, yet I must take yours as prima facie evidence of the very same thing. I suppose you expect everyone to extrapolate your run-in with a dumb admin at a company who can't get their shit together and apply it to the hundreds of thousands of people who happily run Exchange, and all the millions who use Windows (or "Windoze"), Office, etc. How telling.
Well, in fact, I must not exist as far as you're concerned, because I run just about any piece of Microsoft software you can think of and I've never in 12 or so years been infected, 0wn3d, rooted, hacked or otherwise screwed against my will. Heck, I think the last time I saw a virus in one of my machines it was called "Pong" and came on a floppy. Surely this is impossible; therefore I must be lying. And you must be right, because you run software that is perfect and has no vulnerabilities whatsoever. It never needs patching. It has no errors. It also, apparently, magically make its users more intelligent and alert and raises their IQ to three-digit levels. Users of "free software" actually read dialogs before clicking OK. Why? Because they're running KDE, that's why! Yay!
But they are not executables and they won't run.
A bash or Python script coming out of a tar file with the execute bit set seems plenty runnable to me. Which is the gist of this particular worm. Stay on topic and try again.
Worm writers figured this out long ago, and now you get a ZIP file, which, again, is sometimes password protected. Would you write an email client that blocks ZIP and TAR.GZ files? Or look inside them and block if the're an executable inside? Of course not. Yet people get infected by these all the time. I simply cannot see how you would get around a user that is determined enough to open "SecretDocuments.zip" and run the executable or script inside. I don't care what OS you're using.
The distinction between a document and an executable in Windows is a good idea turned bad, as is the fact that extensions are hidden by default. Applications don't have a problem seeing the extension; it's just a display setting. So yes, "document.doc.exe" looks to the user like a Word document. Still, the point is that people should not have to be aware of that distinction. Theory vs. practice. Now we get into ease of use and "OOB experience" vs. something that needs to be fought to the death to work as expected. I sure as heck don't have a solution to these problems because I don't write and sell operating systems. Or give them away. Still, people deride Microsoft's design choices as if they were made on whims - they made a call in the name of usability and now they're paying for it. Tough shit. Good intentions, bad results. It doesn't mean it won't happen to another OS, especially when you start feeling the pressure to make it easier to use.
Yeah, thanks. I've must have missed it =)