I was recently in Tokyo and Seoul on vacation, and happened to poke my head into a few retailers (Yodobashi Camera, TechnoMart, among others). There were dozens of different netbook models for sale. There were zero netbooks running Linux for sale. About half the netbooks ran Vista.
I think the previous poster means that he would have excused Vista's poor performance had it not been the OEM-installed OS.
Specifically, had he bought the computer with (for example) Windows XP installed, and then installed Vista and found it unusable, perhaps the hardware was unsuited for the task. However, since the OEM that build said hardware shipped it with Vista pre-installed, there is no excuse for the poor performance; if the computer was not appropriate to run Vista, the OEM should have selected a more suitable OS.
Back when the big worm floating around was "Code Red" exploiting IIS, it occurred to me that those of us trying to combat this problem are too nice.
A suggested solution: The Counter-Worm. Devise a piece of software that is capable of exploiting an infected system, possibly through the same vulnerability that the worm uses (whichever worm is at large, presently). Run that software on an internet-facing host. If that host is attacked by an infected system, the Counter-Worm should:
1. Compromise the worm-infected system, destroying the worm, and
2. Install a variant of itself, which will propagate to other hosts which attack it (potentially following the original worm back to the source).
3. Put a great big footprint on the compromised system that says "Your system was compromised. Please seek professional services to rebuild and secure your computer against use by malicious individuals."
4(a). After a predetermined amount of time (24-48 hours) self destruct, destroying the host OS but leaving any data intact on the hard drives, but leaving the footprint message for anyone who connects the hard disks for data recovery.
Is this vigilantism? Probably. But if most of the source systems are, in fact, in countries with questionable legal infrastructures, there wouldn't be any real repercussions. Given how effective law enforcement has been against worm-creators, I doubt that Counter-Worm creators would suffer much in the way of penalties.
Isn't this mean to the victims of the worm? I suppose it is. However, it would by definition have no effect on responsible people whose systems were not infected, and it would create an incentive for a) people who own computers to start keeping themselves protected and b) companies who write computer software to start creating countermeasures that actually work. If this really bothers you, leave out step 4.
Would this work? I don't know. But it would almost certainly be more effective than the current methods. The real question is whether this would stop the original perpetrators, or just create a new arms race; regrettably, it would probably cause the latter. Perhaps a better step 4 would be to have the system create a new botnet that traces the original worm back to its source, so that a team of thugs can find the perps and crush their knuckles into a fine powder, never to type or click again.
Am I bitter? Not really, just tired and frustrated.
If I've only made a few edits, I usually just quit and re-edit using sudo. If I have made a lot of edits, I usually save-as with a different filename, and then rename/move the files involved once I can escalate my privileges.
:w filename will write the current buffer as the new filename.
I use vi(m) on MacOS X, linux, and Windows, though I admit to using the arrow keys because j,k,l,h are tough to keep track of when typing in dvorak. I will also admit to being confused when confronted with a new linux install that has something like "nano" set as the editor - it always takes me a little while to figure out how to write out the file.
Does Microsoft have the right to charge more money to consumers who buy a copy of Windows, rather than OEM's? What about the price differential between "Upgrade" licenses and "Retail" licenses? Microsoft presently offers both Upgrade and retail licenses - Apple only offers upgrade licenses. Licenses can dictate whatever terms they want, as long as those terms don't violate the law. Is Psystar's lawsuit going to mean we can finally buy software, rather than licensing it? I doubt it.
Someone already is challenging Apple's (And Microsoft's, and Sun's, and Adobe's, etc.) licenses. It's called the GPL.
Not to be an Apple apologists, but technically, they're not paying for the OS. All of the Apple OS retail box copies are technically upgrade licenses, since all Macintosh computers originally came with MacOS X. An upgrade license for Windows costs about half as much as a regular install copy; Pystar would logically need to be paying $260 per copy of OS X in order to install it and have paid for the OS.
The first week that chipped passports are deployed, most of the staffers will check both the paper contents and the chip contents. After a month, staffers will still check most of the paper passports, but if the line is long, they will just check the chip contents, because "it's faster." (Hey, that's why they're doing this, right? Faster and more "secure"?) After a year, staffers will probably ignore the paper copy for about half of the checks, and after two or three, they'll use "spot checks" and only check one paper passport in 100 or so. And then it won't really matter what the paper copy looks like, as long as it roughly approximates the size and shape of a passport.
OpenOffice doesn't support Mac Users, so it's unlikely they'll support OpenOffice. NeoOffice is doing a pretty good job, though, and I recommend it to people who still want that "Office" feel. As for Microsoft office, most of the researchers I support use Microsoft Word for one reason: EndNote.
Sharing culture isn't meant to be illegal. Copyright is meant to last for 14 years, renewable for another 14 years; at the end of that time, a work becomes "culture" and is then shareable. Certainly under current law it's illegal to share anything at all, because the copyright cartels keep extending their reach by purchasing extensions. Does that mean that no culture is created anymore, or that the current Copyright system needs to be repaired?
What I consider to be the most deranged facet of the US system of government's checks and balances is that is impossible to overturn a bad law without breaking said law, and then pushing that case up to the Supreme Court. This essentially means that only someone very wealthy can oppose bad laws, or that a law may only be reversed by a large enough group of people that it is impossible to subdue the entire group. Unfortunately, the only way to repeal the absurd extensions to copyright is to break the laws that create them, and in enough numbers that it becomes impossible to keep us all down.
I use that for a lot of AirPort connection issues, but turning AirPort back on doesn't explicitly initiate a connection to an 802.1x secured network. That's part of the steps to resolve the connection issues in Leopard, but it's not the whole thing.
And that makes a big difference. I would certainly agree that the new Network pane is much more comprehensive and thorough than the old one, and it includes a lot of the functionality that used to be broken out into Internet Connect.app, but it doesn't include all of them, which means (for example) there's no longer a "Connect" button for connecting to 802.1x wireless networks. In fact there's no longer a Connect button for anything, which makes for a nightmare.
Under Tiger, I could configure the appropriate connection for our 802.1x-secured wireless network, and have users click "Connect" and "Disconnect" to control the connection. Now, it sort of connects, sometimes, when it feels like it, and it doesn't stay connected, or manage to maintain connections across Sleep/Wake cycles (previously the answer might have been "Oh, just disconnect and reconnect to the wireless with this giant blue button." Now, there's no simple way to reset that connection).
I have had this argument with several friends who are... disappointed with my requests to remove any pictures containing me from Facebook. Tags don't have to link to another facebook account, they can simply be names. Even if you delete your account, the picture of you on your buddy's account will still say "Jim Smith" below it.
Wouldn't it make more sense for them to claim that the books' prices are their intellectual property? I suspect the objection isn't about the prices or ISBNs themselves, but about the correlations of ISBNs with a particular course's requirements. For example, you can find out the ISBN of any textbook you want if you look it up by Title/Author/Edition. What you don't know, however, is whether that particular book is required for a course at a local college or university. However, if you walk into that institution's "official" bookstore a few weeks before classes start, you will see all the textbooks neatly arranged by department and course number. This, traditionally, is how business was done: students went to the bookstore to buy their textbooks, and the bookstore was essentially granted a monopoly in exchange for their cooperation with the school (i.e., ordering N copies of the books the professors submitted as required for their courses, organizing them by class, etc.).
The good news is that many instructors have become fed-up with the pricing at college bookstores, and have started disseminating the Titles and ISBNs of their required books to students ahead of time (via a course website, or an online syllabus). This works very well if you have three or four classes, and need to find books for them. However, if you're trying to set up a web site to provide links to textbooks based on the books required for certain classes, hunting down requirements can be a very tedious process (and even ultimately unfruitful - in some cases textbook information may not be available until you've registered for a class). The fastest and easiest way to obtain textbook information for a large number of classes is to go to the campus bookstore, who unsurprisingly don't appreciate the competition.
Do I agree with the Coop's attempt to suppress this information gathering? No. I think it's silly. However, it may be worthwhile for someone to approach the administration and find out if they can be provided with the same lists that go to the bookstore, and cut out the middleman. That would allow for true competition; the Coop doesn't have to suffer someone mooching off their hard work (organizing textbooks by class), and there is true competition to benefit the students. As an added benefit, inquiries would probably bring to light what sort of kick-backs the school receives from the Coop.
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It's because they use the metric system in Norway; the US Apple Store has 35,000 Imperial Apps.
I was recently in Tokyo and Seoul on vacation, and happened to poke my head into a few retailers (Yodobashi Camera, TechnoMart, among others). There were dozens of different netbook models for sale. There were zero netbooks running Linux for sale. About half the netbooks ran Vista.
I think the previous poster means that he would have excused Vista's poor performance had it not been the OEM-installed OS.
Specifically, had he bought the computer with (for example) Windows XP installed, and then installed Vista and found it unusable, perhaps the hardware was unsuited for the task. However, since the OEM that build said hardware shipped it with Vista pre-installed, there is no excuse for the poor performance; if the computer was not appropriate to run Vista, the OEM should have selected a more suitable OS.
So, it depends on what you have for a video card, and may or may not work? Sounds effective.
Back when the big worm floating around was "Code Red" exploiting IIS, it occurred to me that those of us trying to combat this problem are too nice.
A suggested solution: The Counter-Worm. Devise a piece of software that is capable of exploiting an infected system, possibly through the same vulnerability that the worm uses (whichever worm is at large, presently). Run that software on an internet-facing host. If that host is attacked by an infected system, the Counter-Worm should:
1. Compromise the worm-infected system, destroying the worm, and
2. Install a variant of itself, which will propagate to other hosts which attack it (potentially following the original worm back to the source).
3. Put a great big footprint on the compromised system that says "Your system was compromised. Please seek professional services to rebuild and secure your computer against use by malicious individuals."
4(a). After a predetermined amount of time (24-48 hours) self destruct, destroying the host OS but leaving any data intact on the hard drives, but leaving the footprint message for anyone who connects the hard disks for data recovery.
Is this vigilantism? Probably. But if most of the source systems are, in fact, in countries with questionable legal infrastructures, there wouldn't be any real repercussions. Given how effective law enforcement has been against worm-creators, I doubt that Counter-Worm creators would suffer much in the way of penalties.
Isn't this mean to the victims of the worm? I suppose it is. However, it would by definition have no effect on responsible people whose systems were not infected, and it would create an incentive for a) people who own computers to start keeping themselves protected and b) companies who write computer software to start creating countermeasures that actually work. If this really bothers you, leave out step 4.
Would this work? I don't know. But it would almost certainly be more effective than the current methods. The real question is whether this would stop the original perpetrators, or just create a new arms race; regrettably, it would probably cause the latter. Perhaps a better step 4 would be to have the system create a new botnet that traces the original worm back to its source, so that a team of thugs can find the perps and crush their knuckles into a fine powder, never to type or click again.
Am I bitter? Not really, just tired and frustrated.
If I've only made a few edits, I usually just quit and re-edit using sudo. If I have made a lot of edits, I usually save-as with a different filename, and then rename/move the files involved once I can escalate my privileges.
will write the current buffer as the new filename.
I use vi(m) on MacOS X, linux, and Windows, though I admit to using the arrow keys because j,k,l,h are tough to keep track of when typing in dvorak. I will also admit to being confused when confronted with a new linux install that has something like "nano" set as the editor - it always takes me a little while to figure out how to write out the file.
That depends on your expansion of "PDA." Have you seen the Apple fanboys making out with their devices in public? I think that counts as PDA as well.
Does Microsoft have the right to charge more money to consumers who buy a copy of Windows, rather than OEM's? What about the price differential between "Upgrade" licenses and "Retail" licenses? Microsoft presently offers both Upgrade and retail licenses - Apple only offers upgrade licenses. Licenses can dictate whatever terms they want, as long as those terms don't violate the law. Is Psystar's lawsuit going to mean we can finally buy software, rather than licensing it? I doubt it.
Someone already is challenging Apple's (And Microsoft's, and Sun's, and Adobe's, etc.) licenses.
It's called the
GPL.
Not to be an Apple apologists, but technically, they're not paying for the OS. All of the Apple OS retail box copies are technically upgrade licenses, since all Macintosh computers originally came with MacOS X. An upgrade license for Windows costs about half as much as a regular install copy; Pystar would logically need to be paying $260 per copy of OS X in order to install it and have paid for the OS.
The Earth just sucks.
The first week that chipped passports are deployed, most of the staffers will check both the paper contents and the chip contents. After a month, staffers will still check most of the paper passports, but if the line is long, they will just check the chip contents, because "it's faster." (Hey, that's why they're doing this, right? Faster and more "secure"?) After a year, staffers will probably ignore the paper copy for about half of the checks, and after two or three, they'll use "spot checks" and only check one paper passport in 100 or so. And then it won't really matter what the paper copy looks like, as long as it roughly approximates the size and shape of a passport.
If you were an Apple Certified repair technician, you could certainly do this, and it would not void the warranty.
Actually, wouldn't cloning be putting the same basket in all your eggs?
OpenOffice doesn't support Mac Users, so it's unlikely they'll support OpenOffice. NeoOffice is doing a pretty good job, though, and I recommend it to people who still want that "Office" feel. As for Microsoft office, most of the researchers I support use Microsoft Word for one reason: EndNote.
I think you have it all wrong - everyone's doing it, because Pasteurization is the killer app of the dairy industry.
Yeah, it's a shame he can't be better behaved, like his older brother, Voyager 1.
Sharing culture isn't meant to be illegal. Copyright is meant to last for 14 years, renewable for another 14 years; at the end of that time, a work becomes "culture" and is then shareable. Certainly under current law it's illegal to share anything at all, because the copyright cartels keep extending their reach by purchasing extensions. Does that mean that no culture is created anymore, or that the current Copyright system needs to be repaired?
What I consider to be the most deranged facet of the US system of government's checks and balances is that is impossible to overturn a bad law without breaking said law, and then pushing that case up to the Supreme Court. This essentially means that only someone very wealthy can oppose bad laws, or that a law may only be reversed by a large enough group of people that it is impossible to subdue the entire group. Unfortunately, the only way to repeal the absurd extensions to copyright is to break the laws that create them, and in enough numbers that it becomes impossible to keep us all down.
s/suicide/homicide/g
I use that for a lot of AirPort connection issues, but turning AirPort back on doesn't explicitly initiate a connection to an 802.1x secured network. That's part of the steps to resolve the connection issues in Leopard, but it's not the whole thing.
And that makes a big difference. I would certainly agree that the new Network pane is much more comprehensive and thorough than the old one, and it includes a lot of the functionality that used to be broken out into Internet Connect.app, but it doesn't include all of them, which means (for example) there's no longer a "Connect" button for connecting to 802.1x wireless networks. In fact there's no longer a Connect button for anything, which makes for a nightmare.
Under Tiger, I could configure the appropriate connection for our 802.1x-secured wireless network, and have users click "Connect" and "Disconnect" to control the connection. Now, it sort of connects, sometimes, when it feels like it, and it doesn't stay connected, or manage to maintain connections across Sleep/Wake cycles (previously the answer might have been "Oh, just disconnect and reconnect to the wireless with this giant blue button." Now, there's no simple way to reset that connection).
I have had this argument with several friends who are ... disappointed with my requests to remove any pictures containing me from Facebook. Tags don't have to link to another facebook account, they can simply be names. Even if you delete your account, the picture of you on your buddy's account will still say "Jim Smith" below it.
I'm a computer janitor. I set them up, take them down, and clean up other people's messes.
"Windows Me" isn't an operating system, it's an epithet.
"Yeah, bite me"
"Yeah, Windows Me."
Notice how similar the terms are?
The good news is that many instructors have become fed-up with the pricing at college bookstores, and have started disseminating the Titles and ISBNs of their required books to students ahead of time (via a course website, or an online syllabus). This works very well if you have three or four classes, and need to find books for them. However, if you're trying to set up a web site to provide links to textbooks based on the books required for certain classes, hunting down requirements can be a very tedious process (and even ultimately unfruitful - in some cases textbook information may not be available until you've registered for a class). The fastest and easiest way to obtain textbook information for a large number of classes is to go to the campus bookstore, who unsurprisingly don't appreciate the competition.
Do I agree with the Coop's attempt to suppress this information gathering? No. I think it's silly. However, it may be worthwhile for someone to approach the administration and find out if they can be provided with the same lists that go to the bookstore, and cut out the middleman. That would allow for true competition; the Coop doesn't have to suffer someone mooching off their hard work (organizing textbooks by class), and there is true competition to benefit the students. As an added benefit, inquiries would probably bring to light what sort of kick-backs the school receives from the Coop.