On the old Windows 95/NT books, I always tear off the front page with the hologram and just keep that part. The rest of the book gets tossed in the trash can. I figure that the hologram should be sufficient if there is an audit. Of course now with Windows 2000, the only thing that I have to keep is a little sticker.. much easier. Good or bad, it is usually attached to the physical computer it was purchased for so that there are no more books to keep.. I guess if you worked in a computer lab or something you might want to keep the stickers in the back room, in the case that some student were to steal the windows 2000 license:)
hmm, I went to that link and got a 404 error.. nothing to worry about if you use mozilla, but how can this do something bad to IE? Did they take the page down?
They don't mention what interface the cradle uses, do you think it's USB? That would seem to be the most compatible right now, but the transfer speeds are not fast enough to make you want to transfer 10GB very often. I guess that most people's music collections will fit on the hard disc, but I hope the bundled software would be smart enough to synchronize someone's music collection with the disk without transferring the files that have already been copied over..
I don't really understand why people keep saying this. The BBC article doesn't mention anything about the http server built into morpheus clients. It says:
Using the Morpheus program, they found a way of getting a random list of people using the service. They could then obtain details of the content of a user's hard drive and make copies of any file. "We're not sure what it is that makes some Morpheus members vulnerable to this," said one, who asked to remain anonymous.
If you were referring to the 'exploit' someone posted earlier about pointing a web browser at a node, then that obviously isn't any kind of exploit. However, the issue they mention in the article sounds very different.. the article even mentions a worm.. They also say that not all users are affected, the issue you describe would affect everyone (assuming no firewall that blocks connections to 1214).
the problem with CTRL+PGUP / PGDOWN is that you have to take you hands away from the home keys when you switch tabs. That really adds no additional accessibility for me. I might as well use the mouse if I have to reach over to PGUP/DOWN. I think Windows has it correct at CTRL+TAB and CTRL+SHIFT+TAB.. those keys don't seem to do anything in mozilla, why not use those instead?
$30 is very cheap for cable modem service.. did you already buy the cable modem or maybe you don't live in the US? I pay $45 for @home per month which includes the cable modem since I did not buy one (I think they will take off $10 per month if you already have one). From what I understand that is pretty standard nation wide, in areas where @home is the only cable provider.
Actually unix is the only platform I will even open a word document on. What word macro virus is going to work (or even target for that matter) on platforms other than Windows? I don't really care that much about the format as long as the file actually opens in koffice or abiword. But on Windows.. if I am not on a computer with a virus scanner you can expect me to delete it immediately..doc files just are not safe..
agreed, PDF is a great format and is very good for documents you expect to be printed by the receiver. I use it all the time for user documentation. There are many parsers available for various fileformats that can spit out PDF files too. This way, the writer is free to use whatever tool he or she wants, and the end result is transparent to the receiver. There is a very good reason why PDF is the defacto standard for electronic manuals and books (rather than doc)... How many electronic manuals do you see in a.doc format besides the kixtart manual anyway:P
attaching the actual word document is not necessary most of the time. I use word occasionally when I have to produce a document with formatting (documentation for example). However, once I have the source word file, it always gets converted to a PDF file for eletronic transmission. This way, I do not have to worry about Word compatibility issues and whether or not someone has Word. With acrobat, all the user has to do is have the free PDF reader from Acrobat. I will never transmit the acutal word file itself in email or via the web unless I have a _really_ good reason to do so.
Take the kixtart manual for example. For what reason do the readers need the source word file when PDF would suffice? Are the users going to be changing the manual? The word file is also bigger than the ghostscript-produced pdf file by about 50KB. PDF really is a much better format for transmitting most electonic documents, especially manuals. The few seconds it takes you to convert the file to PDF could save the people you send it to some time.
Re:Missing last letters in IE on screenshots??
on
LindowsOS Marches On
·
· Score: 1
It seems to be a font size problem. I checked the screenshot (lindows) version of IE against the real version of IE5.5. The icons are exactly the same size in both versions, however the fonts in the lindows screenshot for the toolbar buttons are too big. My guess is that the last character or two got cropped. It might be a WINE problem...
Starcraft is not a 3d game as it has no 3d engine. It is about as three dimensional as the first Duke Nukem. The developers used some tricks to provide some feel of a third dimension inside of the game engine, but it does not actually exist. If you want to see a RTS game that does use a 3d engine, check out total annihilation.
Well, based on the last few stories like this on slashdot, I would say that it is a very good time to go back to school and work towards a B.S. in something. Certifications like MCSE, CNA, or CCNA can still probably get your foot in the door, and you only need practical experience to earn one. You can get that experience by playing around with some computers in your basement...
However, I still think that the college degree is the way to go.. promotions will be difficult to get without one. Even with 60 hours or so of college coursework, you can get an entry level position somewhere and then work your way up from there.
The only problem that I have with the hard disc sleeves is that I can only find ones rated for ATA 5400 RPM drives:( My 7200 RPM SCSI drive is not that noisy and it blows away the low performance value drives... Granted that 7200 RPM and 10K RPM drives do generate a lot of heat, but just buy a big case and mount them away from the other components and it will be just fine. Most desktop machines only need one hard disc anyway.
...why do you think Linux (and most Unices) are more secure on a network than Windows ?
hehe, good one. An operating system as big as Windows XP that is vulerable out of the box with the default setup is unacceptable to me. Many people that have already purchased this operating system will not patch this hole. We'll be seeing Code Red II pretty soon.
Is RH 7 vulnerable OOTB with the default installation, no. Some services such as wuftpd are vulnerable to a remote exploit, but the user must turn those on manually. It is then assumed that the user knows what he or she is doing and then secures the service by updating the RPMs. In the XP case, the user just has to take the computer home from Best Buy and plug the thing into the cable modem and it's vulnerable.
Re:Well go ahead, got any better ideas?
on
Mozilla 0.9.7 Released!
·
· Score: 2, Informative
It is not just on page load / unload.. some popups / popunders are timed. The user does nothing to cause the new window to be opened.. thus the pref says 'Open Windows by themselves'. I do agree though that popups / popunders should be included in parenthesis, but the original option is worded pretty well.
And actually, the existing interface in 0.9.7 is:
Scripts and Windows
===================
[x] Enable Javascript
allow scripts to do the following:
[x] Open Windows by themselves
.
.
.
What exactly is the purpose of lindows and why do they think that they can compete with Windows? It sounds like it could be cheaper than Windows, but this project (if it isn't a hoax) will not amount to anything. From their FAQ:
For $99 users can obtain the LindowsOS Preview Release along with the promise that Lindows.com will work hard to give consumers real value.
$99 for a preview release!! who do they think they are, Microsoft? They also go on to say that it won't run _all_ Windows software and they will keep a database of known working software titles. This thing just sounds like linux+wine.. oh boy.
I must disagree with your numbers.. you can build a pretty good PC for about $500 - $600 if you DIY, or you can buy one already built for $1,000 (includes MS Windows XP Pro). Lets say that most consumers buy their computers built. You can add Office 2000 or XP for less than $200.00 on dell.com, which is still expensive but nowhere near your estimate of $900.
Now you're still talking about a $1,200 system, but the distribution is different, as most of the money pays for hardware and labor and support. The M$ software cost can't exceed much more than a couple hundred dollars.
You have to take into account the steep OEM discounts that Dell can provide because of their partnership with M$. A boxed version of XP is very expensive off of the shelf (close to $300 for XP Pro I think). However, buying a computer from dell with XP preinstalled will cost significantly less. It's difficult to say exactly how much they charge for Windows since you can't buy a dell computer without it..
Unless they intentionally make it suck.. then what is the use? By the time they get around to releasing and porting office to linux.. Star Office and KOffice will have made significant progress and it is very possible that Microsoft office will be no better (maybe worse!) than the alternatives.
Currently Microsoft Office is better suited for our business, and so we standardize on Microsoft Windows / Office for desktop machines. However, in a year I expect linux-based systems to be a viable alternative to the microsoft ones. Give Sun a year or so.. StarOffice6 beta is already looking very good and can open most of the MS Word files I have thrown at it.
Springfield, IL has been down all day as well.. I haven't tried it in a few hours but when I woke up at 8:00am everything was working fine except for DNS. Then I decided to try a DHCP release and renew and that pretty much killed by connection:) After power cycling the cable modem I lost sync and haven't been able to get it back all day. Insight@home has updated their page again and confirmed that it was an unintentional error and that service should be restored in the near future.. hopfully I'll be back up tomorrow.
Here is a message I received from a US provider Insight@Home. It's somewhat reassuring.. hopefully my connection is still working when I get back from work tomorrow...
Firstly, you should know we do not believe the system will go dark. We are working on a number of fronts to prevent this from happening, including direct motions in the Court, as well as working with the Federal Communications Commission to protect customers with, at minimum, a 30-day notification before service can be terminated. We're working not only with AT&T, but also with other ISPs, including Road Runner and AOL Broadband, to bring alternative networks, and indeed choice, for our high-speed data customers. We believe those services will be available within a very short period.
While we do not believe that the service will go dark, we do urge you to take the following precautionary measures with your data:
- Check your Insight@Home email account(s) on a daily basis. Doing this will automatically save your email to your hard drive as well as ensure timely receipt of important future communications from Insight Communications.
- Backup your personal web page(s) by copying them to a diskette, CD or to your computer hard drive.
We have opened up our call centers beyond normal weekend capacity so that we will be available to answer any questions you may have.
We have also created a special web page where we will post announcements regarding any updates to this situation and how it may impact you. The web page will be available beginning Friday afternoon, following the Court's ruling, and can be accessed at:
http://www.insight-com.com/net/UPDATES
I agree with you that schools are a great place for companies like Redhat to start, although I don't really know how Redhat could afford to give their services away right now. Maybe the courts should make Microsoft pay for it! As many have noted, the idea of Microsoft giving away 900 million dollars worth of Microsoft software is a really stupid idea. How about making them spend 900 million on linux training for the staff of educational institutions?
Public schools around here have so little funding that they struggle to hire at least one competent IT person. Most can't even get that, and just give the Math teacher an IIS CD and NT server. They really don't know that much about Windows anyway, and so they might as well learn how to use something like RH linux and kickstart.
The problem with Solaris IMHO is that you would most likely have to run it on x86 hardware. I have never tried this, but I hear that is isn't that great..
I would have to disagree with you as it sounds like you are describing the new Dell Dimention 4300 case. I really hate that thing to be quite honest. I prefer something normal (and higher quality) like the Enlight 7230 which is quite good for a midtower. It uses 5.25" drives on rails so that your cd-rom drive, for example, isn't bolted to the side of the case. It has a much more modular feel. But again you have to unplug the power and ribbon cable, but that doesn't take very long. Both cases have enough room so that it's not that big of a deal..
Unfortuntely I can't buy those from Dell and thus am stuck with the new 4300 design. I really don't like the rounded look of the 4300 case. The floppy discs are difficult to retrieve because of the recessed floppy drive. The black components really bug me because I have an office filled with spare white components! Even though I don't care what the computer looks like, the users seem to care.. They get upset when I replace their broken black Intellimouse with a standard white one from M$. Of course all Dell cases (including the 4100 series) feel cheap to me since the outside panels are made of plastic rather than metal.
Slashdot Mirror
On the old Windows 95/NT books, I always tear off the front page with the hologram and just keep that part. The rest of the book gets tossed in the trash can. I figure that the hologram should be sufficient if there is an audit. Of course now with Windows 2000, the only thing that I have to keep is a little sticker.. much easier. Good or bad, it is usually attached to the physical computer it was purchased for so that there are no more books to keep.. I guess if you worked in a computer lab or something you might want to keep the stickers in the back room, in the case that some student were to steal the windows 2000 license :)
hmm, I went to that link and got a 404 error.. nothing to worry about if you use mozilla, but how can this do something bad to IE? Did they take the page down?
They don't mention what interface the cradle uses, do you think it's USB? That would seem to be the most compatible right now, but the transfer speeds are not fast enough to make you want to transfer 10GB very often. I guess that most people's music collections will fit on the hard disc, but I hope the bundled software would be smart enough to synchronize someone's music collection with the disk without transferring the files that have already been copied over..
Using the Morpheus program, they found a way of getting a random list of people using the service. They could then obtain details of the content of a user's hard drive and make copies of any file. "We're not sure what it is that makes some Morpheus members vulnerable to this," said one, who asked to remain anonymous.
If you were referring to the 'exploit' someone posted earlier about pointing a web browser at a node, then that obviously isn't any kind of exploit. However, the issue they mention in the article sounds very different.. the article even mentions a worm.. They also say that not all users are affected, the issue you describe would affect everyone (assuming no firewall that blocks connections to 1214).
the problem with CTRL+PGUP / PGDOWN is that you have to take you hands away from the home keys when you switch tabs. That really adds no additional accessibility for me. I might as well use the mouse if I have to reach over to PGUP/DOWN. I think Windows has it correct at CTRL+TAB and CTRL+SHIFT+TAB.. those keys don't seem to do anything in mozilla, why not use those instead?
$30 is very cheap for cable modem service.. did you already buy the cable modem or maybe you don't live in the US? I pay $45 for @home per month which includes the cable modem since I did not buy one (I think they will take off $10 per month if you already have one). From what I understand that is pretty standard nation wide, in areas where @home is the only cable provider.
Actually unix is the only platform I will even open a word document on. What word macro virus is going to work (or even target for that matter) on platforms other than Windows? I don't really care that much about the format as long as the file actually opens in koffice or abiword. But on Windows.. if I am not on a computer with a virus scanner you can expect me to delete it immediately. .doc files just are not safe..
agreed, PDF is a great format and is very good for documents you expect to be printed by the receiver. I use it all the time for user documentation. There are many parsers available for various fileformats that can spit out PDF files too. This way, the writer is free to use whatever tool he or she wants, and the end result is transparent to the receiver. There is a very good reason why PDF is the defacto standard for electronic manuals and books (rather than doc)... How many electronic manuals do you see in a .doc format besides the kixtart manual anyway :P
Take the kixtart manual for example. For what reason do the readers need the source word file when PDF would suffice? Are the users going to be changing the manual? The word file is also bigger than the ghostscript-produced pdf file by about 50KB. PDF really is a much better format for transmitting most electonic documents, especially manuals. The few seconds it takes you to convert the file to PDF could save the people you send it to some time.
It seems to be a font size problem. I checked the screenshot (lindows) version of IE against the real version of IE5.5. The icons are exactly the same size in both versions, however the fonts in the lindows screenshot for the toolbar buttons are too big. My guess is that the last character or two got cropped. It might be a WINE problem...
Starcraft is not a 3d game as it has no 3d engine. It is about as three dimensional as the first Duke Nukem. The developers used some tricks to provide some feel of a third dimension inside of the game engine, but it does not actually exist. If you want to see a RTS game that does use a 3d engine, check out total annihilation.
Well, based on the last few stories like this on slashdot, I would say that it is a very good time to go back to school and work towards a B.S. in something. Certifications like MCSE, CNA, or CCNA can still probably get your foot in the door, and you only need practical experience to earn one. You can get that experience by playing around with some computers in your basement...
However, I still think that the college degree is the way to go.. promotions will be difficult to get without one. Even with 60 hours or so of college coursework, you can get an entry level position somewhere and then work your way up from there.
The only problem that I have with the hard disc sleeves is that I can only find ones rated for ATA 5400 RPM drives :( My 7200 RPM SCSI drive is not that noisy and it blows away the low performance value drives... Granted that 7200 RPM and 10K RPM drives do generate a lot of heat, but just buy a big case and mount them away from the other components and it will be just fine. Most desktop machines only need one hard disc anyway.
hehe, good one. An operating system as big as Windows XP that is vulerable out of the box with the default setup is unacceptable to me. Many people that have already purchased this operating system will not patch this hole. We'll be seeing Code Red II pretty soon.
Is RH 7 vulnerable OOTB with the default installation, no. Some services such as wuftpd are vulnerable to a remote exploit, but the user must turn those on manually. It is then assumed that the user knows what he or she is doing and then secures the service by updating the RPMs. In the XP case, the user just has to take the computer home from Best Buy and plug the thing into the cable modem and it's vulnerable.
It is not just on page load / unload.. some popups / popunders are timed. The user does nothing to cause the new window to be opened.. thus the pref says 'Open Windows by themselves'. I do agree though that popups / popunders should be included in parenthesis, but the original option is worded pretty well.
And actually, the existing interface in 0.9.7 is:
Scripts and Windows
===================
[x] Enable Javascript
allow scripts to do the following:
[x] Open Windows by themselves
.
.
.
For $99 users can obtain the LindowsOS Preview Release along with the promise that Lindows.com will work hard to give consumers real value.
$99 for a preview release!! who do they think they are, Microsoft? They also go on to say that it won't run _all_ Windows software and they will keep a database of known working software titles. This thing just sounds like linux+wine.. oh boy.
I must disagree with your numbers.. you can build a pretty good PC for about $500 - $600 if you DIY, or you can buy one already built for $1,000 (includes MS Windows XP Pro). Lets say that most consumers buy their computers built. You can add Office 2000 or XP for less than $200.00 on dell.com, which is still expensive but nowhere near your estimate of $900.
Now you're still talking about a $1,200 system, but the distribution is different, as most of the money pays for hardware and labor and support. The M$ software cost can't exceed much more than a couple hundred dollars.
You have to take into account the steep OEM discounts that Dell can provide because of their partnership with M$. A boxed version of XP is very expensive off of the shelf (close to $300 for XP Pro I think). However, buying a computer from dell with XP preinstalled will cost significantly less. It's difficult to say exactly how much they charge for Windows since you can't buy a dell computer without it..
Unless they intentionally make it suck.. then what is the use? By the time they get around to releasing and porting office to linux.. Star Office and KOffice will have made significant progress and it is very possible that Microsoft office will be no better (maybe worse!) than the alternatives.
Currently Microsoft Office is better suited for our business, and so we standardize on Microsoft Windows / Office for desktop machines. However, in a year I expect linux-based systems to be a viable alternative to the microsoft ones. Give Sun a year or so.. StarOffice6 beta is already looking very good and can open most of the MS Word files I have thrown at it.
that is what it looks like in mozilla too, it looks like their website isn't gecko friendly (read: broken).
the win32 port of the GIMP hasn't been updated in almost a year.. the win32 version is either neglected or has no current maintainer :(
Springfield, IL has been down all day as well.. I haven't tried it in a few hours but when I woke up at 8:00am everything was working fine except for DNS. Then I decided to try a DHCP release and renew and that pretty much killed by connection :) After power cycling the cable modem I lost sync and haven't been able to get it back all day. Insight@home has updated their page again and confirmed that it was an unintentional error and that service should be restored in the near future.. hopfully I'll be back up tomorrow.
Firstly, you should know we do not believe the system will go dark. We are working on a number of fronts to prevent this from happening, including direct motions in the Court, as well as working with the Federal Communications Commission to protect customers with, at minimum, a 30-day notification before service can be terminated. We're working not only with AT&T, but also with other ISPs, including Road Runner and AOL Broadband, to bring alternative networks, and indeed choice, for our high-speed data customers. We believe those services will be available within a very short period.
While we do not believe that the service will go dark, we do urge you to take the following precautionary measures with your data:
- Check your Insight@Home email account(s) on a daily basis. Doing this will automatically save your email to your hard drive as well as ensure timely receipt of important future communications from Insight Communications.
- Backup your personal web page(s) by copying them to a diskette, CD or to your computer hard drive.
We have opened up our call centers beyond normal weekend capacity so that we will be available to answer any questions you may have.
We have also created a special web page where we will post announcements regarding any updates to this situation and how it may impact you. The web page will be available beginning Friday afternoon, following the Court's ruling, and can be accessed at: http://www.insight-com.com/net/UPDATES
I agree with you that schools are a great place for companies like Redhat to start, although I don't really know how Redhat could afford to give their services away right now. Maybe the courts should make Microsoft pay for it! As many have noted, the idea of Microsoft giving away 900 million dollars worth of Microsoft software is a really stupid idea. How about making them spend 900 million on linux training for the staff of educational institutions?
Public schools around here have so little funding that they struggle to hire at least one competent IT person. Most can't even get that, and just give the Math teacher an IIS CD and NT server. They really don't know that much about Windows anyway, and so they might as well learn how to use something like RH linux and kickstart.
The problem with Solaris IMHO is that you would most likely have to run it on x86 hardware. I have never tried this, but I hear that is isn't that great..
hrmm, they already do. download an ISO from your favorite mirror for free...
Unfortuntely I can't buy those from Dell and thus am stuck with the new 4300 design. I really don't like the rounded look of the 4300 case. The floppy discs are difficult to retrieve because of the recessed floppy drive. The black components really bug me because I have an office filled with spare white components! Even though I don't care what the computer looks like, the users seem to care.. They get upset when I replace their broken black Intellimouse with a standard white one from M$. Of course all Dell cases (including the 4100 series) feel cheap to me since the outside panels are made of plastic rather than metal.