You want it privatized? Force them to compete. No more employer-provided healthcare to drive up costs for those of us who would rather shop on our own. I don't have employer-provided car insurance, yet the majority of the mileage on my car is from going to and from work. Decouple healthcare from your job. Let us shop for the health insurance that best meets our own needs.
Or satellite orbital mechanics. Oddly enough, way back when, I had my AHA!!! moment in how to do 3d computer graphics (it was a hobby, this was in the time of future crew, renaissance, etc) when I took a spaceflight dynamics class. Yup, rotating and translating, to include 3d equations of motion and acceleration for spaceflight are EXACTLY the same thing you do to render the stuff on a computer (except you have to add the perspective, 2d screen and all that).
I just drag/drop the stuff I want on my portable devices to my portable devices. Done.
The device itself then indexes its local collection in the background using subfolders and id3 tags. I use rockbox on my sansa and music player remixed on my Palm Pre, fwiw. On the palm, it's all done wirelessly via an ssh filesystem. I never connect it to anything, not even to charge (they've had inductive charging integrated since inception).
If you have to rely on some magic software to put music on your devices, you are doing it wrong. If you are locked into that ecosystem, then you are just stupid and deserve the pain that you have caused yourself.
Computers are tools. What makes them useful is the things we tell them to do. We tell them to do things through code. Therefore, to properly use a computer, you should know a little bit about how to code, and a bit about how the thing works, shouldn't you? I'm talking about general-use computing here, not things you would do with a kiosk or point of sale system.
If a big part of your job is to use a computer, to analyze and share data, then yes, you should know how to code. I certainly expect people who work on my house, my car, etc, to know how to use their tools.
If you create content or processes on computers, you should know how to properly tell them how to do things. Not knowing this leads to spreadsheet 'databases', single images in powerpoint (or powerpoint at all), word attachments in email that state what could have just been written in the email itself, and all of the other associated idiocy that I'm sure you all deal with every day. I don't expect my mechanics to know these things. In this analogy, they are the computer drivers, not the ones building and fixing the car.
Remember, SQL was originally written to make querying and correlating data easy for managers and NON-PROGRAMMERS. That's why it is so english-y. Now, it is considered 'programming' to understand how to create a SQL query, and management has to rely on other people to use the tool for them so they can have a non-flexible set of buttons they can push rather than just tell the system what they need at any given point themselves. Let that sink in.
Tablets are for content consumption. The interface needs to be toned down, with larger buttons and/or gesture interfaces to interact and multitask (Like WebOS). The interface doesn't need to be as flexible, but it must be consistent.
Laptops/PCs are for content creation. You type a lot here. You don't reach out and touch the screen. You also don't want huge buttons and gestures, as they are a poor interface on these devices. The interface must be FLEXIBLE, but CONSISTENT. It must be adaptable to a workflow. The direction all modern interfaces are headed are failing miserably at this.
Ubuntu and Gnome3 don't get this either. It's annoying.
Now that Phones are more prevalent, and unlimited txt as well, I haven't used IRC, IM, AIM, Google Talk, Jabber, etc etc etc in several years now. Everything is done via SMS. Maybe it's just who my friends are, mostly outside the tech industry.
How many companies in the US have branches in China? How many of those put any kind of firewalling, other than any-any in the VPNs connecting those branches? Yup.
This is what happens when you believe in magic anti virus software rather than practicing good habits around your information security. AV is a sham and causes more harm than good.
It's not difficult. It just seems it is not a priority for you. Make it one. Also, make it fun, which will help to make it a priority. Get a mountain bike, a kayak (whitewater is awesome if you are lucky enough to have a club nearby), snowboard. Something that requires skill at that you will progress with and look forward to doing. I always look forward to my winter roll sessions every friday in the pool.
On the linux side of the house, things are becoming ubuntu-ified, windows-ified, and gnome3-ified. My linux laptop runs worse than it ever has, allows me to customize much less, and I dare say, is now a worse working environment than windows. Thought there would never be a day I would be saying that.
I assume it's easy to just install an adblocking hosts file on android? That's how I do it on my Pre3 at the moment, with an ifup script that updates it when the phone detects it is on my home network.
More importantly, you get an IP address from a range that is not on the ISP's dynamic range, which is always going to be on the RBLs, so good luck running your own mail server without a business class line. Personally, I just relay through dyndns, but then you lose the ability to see errors directly from the receiving party. I'll probably get around to getting a business line again eventually mostly because of this.
I would never trust exchange as a relay. Everywhere I worked where I had the power to do so, Exchange did not sit in the DMZ, and relayed through proper unix mail servers. I prefer sendmail, because I am familiar with it and know how to properly extend and secure it. Use postfix if you prefer, but again, I'd never trust a Microsoft Exchange mail relay.
That's not the way opsec works. The point is, you don't know what harm any piece of information could cause, so you don't disclose it. ESPECIALLY if it's CLASSIFIED.
Slashdot Mirror
... is a big part of the problem.
You want it privatized? Force them to compete. No more employer-provided healthcare to drive up costs for those of us who would rather shop on our own. I don't have employer-provided car insurance, yet the majority of the mileage on my car is from going to and from work. Decouple healthcare from your job. Let us shop for the health insurance that best meets our own needs.
Or satellite orbital mechanics. Oddly enough, way back when, I had my AHA!!! moment in how to do 3d computer graphics (it was a hobby, this was in the time of future crew, renaissance, etc) when I took a spaceflight dynamics class. Yup, rotating and translating, to include 3d equations of motion and acceleration for spaceflight are EXACTLY the same thing you do to render the stuff on a computer (except you have to add the perspective, 2d screen and all that).
I'll focus on music.
I just drag/drop the stuff I want on my portable devices to my portable devices. Done.
The device itself then indexes its local collection in the background using subfolders and id3 tags. I use rockbox on my sansa and music player remixed on my Palm Pre, fwiw. On the palm, it's all done wirelessly via an ssh filesystem. I never connect it to anything, not even to charge (they've had inductive charging integrated since inception).
If you have to rely on some magic software to put music on your devices, you are doing it wrong. If you are locked into that ecosystem, then you are just stupid and deserve the pain that you have caused yourself.
Sftware and business method patents simply should not exist. Period.
That a 'tech writer' even cares what facebook does with their site is bad enough. That it affects him is even worse.
Computers are tools. What makes them useful is the things we tell them to do. We tell them to do things through code. Therefore, to properly use a computer, you should know a little bit about how to code, and a bit about how the thing works, shouldn't you? I'm talking about general-use computing here, not things you would do with a kiosk or point of sale system.
If a big part of your job is to use a computer, to analyze and share data, then yes, you should know how to code. I certainly expect people who work on my house, my car, etc, to know how to use their tools.
If you create content or processes on computers, you should know how to properly tell them how to do things. Not knowing this leads to spreadsheet 'databases', single images in powerpoint (or powerpoint at all), word attachments in email that state what could have just been written in the email itself, and all of the other associated idiocy that I'm sure you all deal with every day. I don't expect my mechanics to know these things. In this analogy, they are the computer drivers, not the ones building and fixing the car.
Remember, SQL was originally written to make querying and correlating data easy for managers and NON-PROGRAMMERS. That's why it is so english-y. Now, it is considered 'programming' to understand how to create a SQL query, and management has to rely on other people to use the tool for them so they can have a non-flexible set of buttons they can push rather than just tell the system what they need at any given point themselves. Let that sink in.
Relevant: http://www.xkcd.com/1172/
Tablets are for content consumption. The interface needs to be toned down, with larger buttons and/or gesture interfaces to interact and multitask (Like WebOS). The interface doesn't need to be as flexible, but it must be consistent.
Laptops/PCs are for content creation. You type a lot here. You don't reach out and touch the screen. You also don't want huge buttons and gestures, as they are a poor interface on these devices. The interface must be FLEXIBLE, but CONSISTENT. It must be adaptable to a workflow. The direction all modern interfaces are headed are failing miserably at this.
Ubuntu and Gnome3 don't get this either. It's annoying.
Always the visionary:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Now that Phones are more prevalent, and unlimited txt as well, I haven't used IRC, IM, AIM, Google Talk, Jabber, etc etc etc in several years now. Everything is done via SMS. Maybe it's just who my friends are, mostly outside the tech industry.
If you have to do that, might as well put a full-featured firewall on instead. Pfsense, for example.
It would have been nice if HP had actually done something with WebOS. *sigh*
How many companies in the US have branches in China? How many of those put any kind of firewalling, other than any-any in the VPNs connecting those branches? Yup.
This is what happens when you believe in magic anti virus software rather than practicing good habits around your information security. AV is a sham and causes more harm than good.
to run your own mail server.
When they release a browser that is useable in Linux at all, even on a full sized system, again.
You want 'offensive' 'cyber' 'weapons'? Just fire missiles into the datacenter. *sigh*.
It's not difficult. It just seems it is not a priority for you. Make it one. Also, make it fun, which will help to make it a priority. Get a mountain bike, a kayak (whitewater is awesome if you are lucky enough to have a club nearby), snowboard. Something that requires skill at that you will progress with and look forward to doing. I always look forward to my winter roll sessions every friday in the pool.
Really? Sweet, I need to give that a look! Pretty disgusted where other DEs are going these days.
On the linux side of the house, things are becoming ubuntu-ified, windows-ified, and gnome3-ified. My linux laptop runs worse than it ever has, allows me to customize much less, and I dare say, is now a worse working environment than windows. Thought there would never be a day I would be saying that.
I assume it's easy to just install an adblocking hosts file on android? That's how I do it on my Pre3 at the moment, with an ifup script that updates it when the phone detects it is on my home network.
More importantly, you get an IP address from a range that is not on the ISP's dynamic range, which is always going to be on the RBLs, so good luck running your own mail server without a business class line. Personally, I just relay through dyndns, but then you lose the ability to see errors directly from the receiving party. I'll probably get around to getting a business line again eventually mostly because of this.
I would never trust exchange as a relay. Everywhere I worked where I had the power to do so, Exchange did not sit in the DMZ, and relayed through proper unix mail servers. I prefer sendmail, because I am familiar with it and know how to properly extend and secure it. Use postfix if you prefer, but again, I'd never trust a Microsoft Exchange mail relay.
But, if anything happens, It's my own fault. I don't have to trust my ISP to do anything but provide the pipe.
That's not the way opsec works. The point is, you don't know what harm any piece of information could cause, so you don't disclose it. ESPECIALLY if it's CLASSIFIED.