Right, I wasn't talking about home users, more like small-business users who have more reason to hold onto their one-of-a-kind apps. The guy running the accounting package on the OS 8 machine has a small business with 10 people; it prints the checks and handles invoices, etc.
My point here is that he handles Apple's lack of backwards compatibility by simply side-stepping it; if you don't need to upgrade, then don't.
Case in point against OS backwards compatibility: I use Photoshop on the Mac, and have done so since 1992, from the 68040 under System 7 to the PowerPC on OS9 to OS X on Intel. For all this time it's been the same program that has moved along with the times, as they were going to anyway to keep the product alive and relevant. I can't run PS 2.5 unless I use an emulator, find some System 7/8 disks, etc. But the bigger point is, except for retro-purposes, why would I want to?
I'm beginning to wonder how much software is in existence that is still running that requires some long, long, depreciated API. The typical examples are the home-grown accounting system, the weird shareware program that does this *one* thing we need, etc. How much of this software is *really*, and I mean *really* out there, that exists in this form and this form only.
To this point, I know someone who has a Mac running OS 8 because he runs an accounting package that was written just for him by a long-gone programmer who's last message was "no, it won't work on OS 9". Instead of feeling the pressure to upgrade his system, he just keeps it running on his original Mac Centris something-or-other while he does all his other work on his Mac Pro.
I respectively disagree; I read nothing in the OP that was specifically about "desktop Linux". The OP mentions "That they are still problems even though they've been known for years - sometimes decades shows that they will never be addressed, or fixed." Since Linux hasn't been around for decades, I assume he's referring to Unix in general, which was *never* a general-purpose desktop OS, as Windows and OS X are.
The second paragraph then simply talks about how code is donated by amateurs who would "walk away" if you said their code was crap. Again, how do you get that the OP was specifically targeting the desktop developers, and not Linux developers as a whole?
Lastly, your comment implies that every post to a story on/. always sticks to the subject at hand. Since you have an ID lower than mine the "you must be new here" joke doesn't work, but you cannot disagree that threads can go into...interesting... tangents, and that there are also people who post incendiary stuff just to get the fanboys riled up. I felt the OP was the latter, and while I don't like feeding the trolls m'self, its (at the time) +5 Interesting rank left me with a severe case of WTF.
Apple's said they don't want to do a netbook, and when people think tablet, they think of a standard tablet-based laptop.
My personal theory is that it would be a Kindle-sized iPhone, though probably without the phone part (so I guess a Kindle-sized ipod touch). With the features of the next version of the os that's publicly known, there's no reason why you couldn't use the iphone interface to do anything you'd do with a netbook. Any apps that you might expect on a netbook would likely be written and sold in the app store pretty darn quick, like a basic word-processing app. If you couldn't stand to use the on-screen keyboard (which presumably would have bigger buttons for the bigger screen), then use a bluetooth keyboard.
That, as far as I can tell, would solve (to me, anyway), both the netbook *and* tablet issue.
The FA was about desktop Linux, yes. The post I was responding to was about Linux in general, and makes no mention of "desktop" Linux. *That* was what I took exception to.
Here is the original article in case you didn't see it:
Linux's ship has sailed.
If you're not using it now, you probably never will. As a long time (and current) Linux user, I have come across all these issues first-hand, as has every other Linux user, developer and advocate out there. That they are still problems even though they've been known for years - sometimes decades shows that they will never be addressed, or fixed.
Linux is a hobby systyem. The code is donated mostly by amateurs (or people working for rewards other than money - for example the recognition of their peers) and is therefore not within the normal disciplines of IT developemt. If you tell a Linux developer their code is crap - or the application they have written is junk, they'll just walk. As they will if you ask them to do things they don't want to: such as write a manual, fix bugs, add (or remove) features.
Basically guys, this is as good as it gets. Live with it or go elsewhere.
The GP made no specific reference to desktop versus server versions of Linux, but instead talked up how it was a hobby OS with people who would stop coding it if their feelings were hurt.
The database is on server hardware, but with my xdmcp session it looks like a desktop to me. This is not something for home use, no.
It's been mentioned elsewhere, but I think that the whole idea of desktops in general is eventually going to morph into something that is platform/OS neutral; some uber-browser will eventually make the whole argument moot as people expect to just connect, wherever they are, and see everything as they left it.
Will this work for everything? No, there will always be people who need to use this machine here now for what they're doing, but for the bulk of the casual (read: home) users, I'd say within 10 years people will be picking up $99 machines from Walmart that they plug in and it logs them into their desktop just as they saw it before their last $99 machine gave up the ghost. What was the OS that booted? They have no idea. In that case, Linux is the better/cheaper option.
So wait, what does this mean, exactly? It's a hobby system that's cute to fiddle with then turn it off when I want to do "real" work? Like working with a database system that holds hundreds of millions of rows, used every day? That's in an Oracle database, running on a Linux machine.
Is my Tivo a "hobby" system? Does TomTom only make "hobby" devices ("you didn't get where you're going? Oh well, you know it's just a hobby system, right?"). I guess I shouldn't expect much from the routers, phones, and other devices that have put Linux at the core of their stack. I mean, it's just a hobby, right?
So what is a "professional" system to you? Windows? Sure, it's used a lot of professional capacities, sure there's a lot of software available for it, but are you saying it's somehow more "professional" than Linux? Why is that? Because it's written by Microsoft? Is Microsoft somehow more professional than Oracle or IBM?
Your post is breathtaking in its ignorance, and I know I'm doing myself no favors by feeding the trolls, but *come* *on*...at least a descent job of flame baiting would latch on to some obvious, specific weakness and exploit it, rightly or wrongly. This is post is just raving.
There have been several suggestions to replace memcpy with memcpy_s as the safer alternative. That's fine, I guess, if memcpy_s is part of the ANSI/ISO standard for C, which as far as I know, it is not; just like all the *_s functions.
Microsoft says your code is safer when using the *_s, but it will no longer be portable, it'll be Microsoft-only. They put in a warning in the compiler from VS2005 onwards about using "unsafe" functions, and that you should use *_s, which is a pain because you have to disable it as the project level, there doesn't seem to be anywhere that I've found that can just turn it off permanently. Even using the STL that comes with VS2008 will generate these warnings, even if you never do any explicit memory stuff yourself.
Microsoft did the same thing with the _* functions; a lot of them are just wrappers around their ANSI-compliant versions (_sprintf -> sprintf), but are also not portable; I worked with a guy who wrote/tested all his C code in VS6 then gave it to me to port to Unix and VMS, and the compilers would choke on not having these particular functions.
Microsoft is trying to get lock-in at the language level instead of providing a good set of Win32 API-based functions that make using memcpy() unnecessary.
I'm interested in the DX because of its native PDF reader, and nothing else. I probably would never buy a book from Amazon to read on it, because everything I want I can get as a PDF, whether it be something technical or literature.
Because of this, theoretically, I'd be immune to these issues, right? They're my own, drm-free PDFs which can't be remotely deleted or somehow blocked.
I like the *idea* of the Kindle in that I can carry millions of pages of whatever on a very light device with a good screen. I was trying out my mom's Kindle and I was shocked at how much I *really* liked it; the screen was really great and, while I didn't care for the slow page redraws, it wouldn't be a deal-breaker. Thus I like the DX idea even more; bigger screen, and drm-free content.
It's great to see that the rovers have lived on for so long, even if they are showing some wear-n-tear, but given the circumstances, they're clearly well built and I'd buy a used one off ebay any day (uh, shipper pays postage).
I'm curious though, in a totally non-judgmental way, about the cost of the program in general; they expected the rovers to last, what, 90 days? So presumably someone budgeted so many resources here on Earth for people, etc., for that length of time. Since the rovers have been doing such a great job of defying expectations, what kind of effect does that have on the budget for the program; is it sufficiently small enough that it just gets lost in the wash?
Also, since their plans were presumably all built for a 90-day time frame, how do they determine what to do now? Do they take requests from PhD candidates and researchers from around the world?
Okay, I agree with your point; it's the most secure version of Unix, but that isn't the same thing as starting with a fresh sheet of paper and designing an OS that is meant to be bullet-proof.
Though that leads to an interesting question: what *is* a bullet-proof OS? I suppose if I had a amount of money, and was the NSA, I presumably could spend the amount to build some super-duper custom OS that doesn't so much as blink the cursor without a 1024-bit AES-generated certificate.
I mentioned this in another post, but the point of using an Alpha, or a MIPS, or Itanium, or whatever, is not meant to be a cure-all, it's meant to present yet-another-barrier to entry. Since malware typically relies on being pre-compiled, your x86-based exploit isn't going to work. Somehow you find out I'm running OpenBSD on an Itanium. Okay, you have that information, but I've still made your job harder, now you have to go out and get an Itanium to build your malware on before you try to hack my box because you can't assume I'll have a compiler on it (and I would never have a compiler on it).
Using a OS like OpenBSD and a different chip architecture will not guarantee a hack-proof box, but it's going to make it that much harder; if you're just looking for a box to turn into a zombie, it won't be worth it. If you're a foreign government trying to get at my battle plans, the booze-n-hookers method is likely going to be easier and faster.
A lot of malware assumes that if it can get on the system, even if it's just a stub program, it can then open a connection and download the rest of it. Since most malware assumes an x86 architecture, the program is downloaded already compiled for said architecture.
By introducing a less-common processor, first, any pre-compiled code simply won't work. Plus you'd have to now figure out what type of processor your target is using, which is not necessarily easy (if I was maintaining such a machine, I'd make sure no program, like Apache, identified the architecture by stripping out any mention of it on the 404 pages, etc.).
Even assuming you figure out the architecture, the machine would never ever ever have any kind of compiler on it so even if you got into it, you wouldn't be able to build anything, you'd have to get ahold of another machine of a similar chipset and build it separately.
All of this can be done, and sure, you could pick up an Alpha if you want from ebay, but for 99.99% of attacks, no one wants to. If you are a foreign government trying to get at my aircraft blueprints, it might be worth it to try, though I'd argue the booze-n-hookers approach would be easier.
According to their website, it is built for security:
The first sentence under goal: OpenBSD believes in strong security. Our aspiration is to be NUMBER ONE in the industry for security (if we are not already there).
When it comes to stories like this, or the one about the Dali Lama's computers being compromised, etc., I'm always surprised that no one considers using OpenBSD as their operating system; it's the only one that I know of that is specifically, purposely built, for security. Because it's Unix, it can still run pretty much everything (though you want to use the OpenBSD version because it's been reviewed for security holes, etc.).
Seriously, if I wanted to keep my battle plans, aircraft designs, etc. out of the hands of the "enemy", I'd lock them up in an OpenBSD server, preferably on some less-common architecture like the Alpha, so that anyone trying to hack my system would have an enormously hard time.
Yes I understand this doesn't take into consideration social networking. So I'd take a page from the elevated privilege playbook and say that in my organization, no one trusts the person below him/her so as secrets can never flow downhill. Going back to the operating system, this would presumably be handled by ACLs.
Of course, no system is immune from the booze-n-hookers style of temptation, but that's someone else's job; I'm just here to install and configure software.:)
...Duke 3D had fun factor in spades, especially when you include the Duke 3D expansion packs.
To this day, every time I walk into a supermarket I think about how much fun that level was, shooting out the milk section while chasing someone who then ran straight into my trip mine.
I watched the video, I saw the screenshots, and I can't believe it's come down to this exact feeling I have looking at all of it:
Eh.
Duke was *special*. It was a FPS in the era of Doom and Quake that gave humor and a personality to the genre. Who here played Doom, then played Doom2, and didn't think "Wow! More of the same!" Quake was especially disappointing insofar as, yes, it was 3-D and all, but it too lacked that certain "something" that kept me playing DN well into the 21st century.
But all of that is gone now. The video and screenshots showed a generic FPS that could have been any game.
Ultimately my feelings directed to the dev team are: "Really? Seriously? Forget the time spent, were you really proud of this?"
Just an FYI: The XO logs everything done on the machine in the "notebook" (I think it's actually called something else but I don't have one with me). It's the first program that starts and I don't think it can be killed.
You'd be able to find out what s/he's done and where s/he's gone pretty quick.
She's 5 feet even, so I guess she figured it would be full-sized for her. She also bought it because she saw it as another way she could "help growing humanity" (her words) so whatever her misunderstanding of the physical specs of the machine, I give her props for her charity.
I got an XO second-hand from someone who had bought it from the G1G1 program, thinking she'd be getting a cheap, full-sized laptop, and was extremely disappointed.
I gave it to the kids and they absolutely love it. They use it for playing around with the paint program ("activity"), some music stuff, etc., Not exactly the "learning" experience a school kid might have with it, but at least they'd rather play with the computer and explore than watch tv.
Frankly, I'm *glad* it doesn't have XP on it; my 4 yo figured out how to do stuff on the XO without having to ask. It uses metaphors that a kid "gets". Do I care she's not "learning what she'll need in the real world?" Can you imagine still hitting the "start" button to do something in twenty years?
Plus I don't have to buy an anti-virus program to install it it.:)
What exactly is Micro Focus buying from Borland since they seem to have divested themselves of everything except something called StarTeam...I went to their website and I'm still not 100% what StarTeam is or does for me.
Maybe that's why they're in dire straits...they make software that takes multiple pages and graphics and bullet points and still doesn't seem to convey exactly how this will help me.
Maybe they go by web logs, but I and my friends have many Linux-based devices; I have a TomTom GPS, my friends have Linksys WRT(Can't remember the num) routers, and I do a lot of work on Linux servers that are completely headless and "somewhere in the cloud".
Linux is bigger than anyone can monitor effectively; so many Linux machines will never touch a web page yet they do useful stuff every day.
BTW, do they break it out by platform? If so, I wonder how many people like me are out there using Linux on a PS3.
Pft...anyone can go into a music store in the US and get copies of standard popular drivel like "Let's Hear it for McKinley!" or "The Victoria Waltz", but those stores won't carry the more edgy stuff like "Please Don't Die of the Dropsey, Dear Adeline" or "Miss Merryweather's New Corset".
Until the US realizes that there's a whole market for sheet music and piano rolls that is out of the mainstream, I'm going to keep buying from north of the border.
...because whoever is in charge of it does such a crummy job of explaining what it is and why I should care, and more importantly, why my folks should care.
I got my router set up to use IPv6 (an Apple Time Capsule), and I went searching for some IPv6 love and found practically none. Yes I got to Google, and yes I found a few websites that seemed to do little more than blink(!) "hooray, you are connecting using IPv6! Your address is..."
IPv6 needs both a killer app (IPv6-only Twitter, anyone?) and some ready-to-explain-why-you-can't-get-to-it documentation that will get the people to *demand* that they have IPv6 addresses.
Slashdot Mirror
Right, I wasn't talking about home users, more like small-business users who have more reason to hold onto their one-of-a-kind apps. The guy running the accounting package on the OS 8 machine has a small business with 10 people; it prints the checks and handles invoices, etc.
My point here is that he handles Apple's lack of backwards compatibility by simply side-stepping it; if you don't need to upgrade, then don't.
Case in point against OS backwards compatibility: I use Photoshop on the Mac, and have done so since 1992, from the 68040 under System 7 to the PowerPC on OS9 to OS X on Intel. For all this time it's been the same program that has moved along with the times, as they were going to anyway to keep the product alive and relevant. I can't run PS 2.5 unless I use an emulator, find some System 7/8 disks, etc. But the bigger point is, except for retro-purposes, why would I want to?
I'm beginning to wonder how much software is in existence that is still running that requires some long, long, depreciated API. The typical examples are the home-grown accounting system, the weird shareware program that does this *one* thing we need, etc. How much of this software is *really*, and I mean *really* out there, that exists in this form and this form only.
To this point, I know someone who has a Mac running OS 8 because he runs an accounting package that was written just for him by a long-gone programmer who's last message was "no, it won't work on OS 9". Instead of feeling the pressure to upgrade his system, he just keeps it running on his original Mac Centris something-or-other while he does all his other work on his Mac Pro.
I respectively disagree; I read nothing in the OP that was specifically about "desktop Linux". The OP mentions "That they are still problems even though they've been known for years - sometimes decades shows that they will never be addressed, or fixed." Since Linux hasn't been around for decades, I assume he's referring to Unix in general, which was *never* a general-purpose desktop OS, as Windows and OS X are.
The second paragraph then simply talks about how code is donated by amateurs who would "walk away" if you said their code was crap. Again, how do you get that the OP was specifically targeting the desktop developers, and not Linux developers as a whole?
Lastly, your comment implies that every post to a story on /. always sticks to the subject at hand. Since you have an ID lower than mine the "you must be new here" joke doesn't work, but you cannot disagree that threads can go into ...interesting... tangents, and that there are also people who post incendiary stuff just to get the fanboys riled up. I felt the OP was the latter, and while I don't like feeding the trolls m'self, its (at the time) +5 Interesting rank left me with a severe case of WTF.
Apple's said they don't want to do a netbook, and when people think tablet, they think of a standard tablet-based laptop.
My personal theory is that it would be a Kindle-sized iPhone, though probably without the phone part (so I guess a Kindle-sized ipod touch). With the features of the next version of the os that's publicly known, there's no reason why you couldn't use the iphone interface to do anything you'd do with a netbook. Any apps that you might expect on a netbook would likely be written and sold in the app store pretty darn quick, like a basic word-processing app. If you couldn't stand to use the on-screen keyboard (which presumably would have bigger buttons for the bigger screen), then use a bluetooth keyboard.
That, as far as I can tell, would solve (to me, anyway), both the netbook *and* tablet issue.
The FA was about desktop Linux, yes. The post I was responding to was about Linux in general, and makes no mention of "desktop" Linux. *That* was what I took exception to.
Here is the original article in case you didn't see it:
Linux's ship has sailed.
If you're not using it now, you probably never will. As a long time (and current) Linux user, I have come across all these issues first-hand, as has every other Linux user, developer and advocate out there. That they are still problems even though they've been known for years - sometimes decades shows that they will never be addressed, or fixed.
Linux is a hobby systyem. The code is donated mostly by amateurs (or people working for rewards other than money - for example the recognition of their peers) and is therefore not within the normal disciplines of IT developemt. If you tell a Linux developer their code is crap - or the application they have written is junk, they'll just walk. As they will if you ask them to do things they don't want to: such as write a manual, fix bugs, add (or remove) features.
Basically guys, this is as good as it gets. Live with it or go elsewhere.
The GP made no specific reference to desktop versus server versions of Linux, but instead talked up how it was a hobby OS with people who would stop coding it if their feelings were hurt.
The database is on server hardware, but with my xdmcp session it looks like a desktop to me. This is not something for home use, no.
It's been mentioned elsewhere, but I think that the whole idea of desktops in general is eventually going to morph into something that is platform/OS neutral; some uber-browser will eventually make the whole argument moot as people expect to just connect, wherever they are, and see everything as they left it.
Will this work for everything? No, there will always be people who need to use this machine here now for what they're doing, but for the bulk of the casual (read: home) users, I'd say within 10 years people will be picking up $99 machines from Walmart that they plug in and it logs them into their desktop just as they saw it before their last $99 machine gave up the ghost. What was the OS that booted? They have no idea. In that case, Linux is the better/cheaper option.
The GP, as far as I can tell, was talking about Linux in general; no references were made to desktop vs server.
Linux is a hobby system
So wait, what does this mean, exactly? It's a hobby system that's cute to fiddle with then turn it off when I want to do "real" work? Like working with a database system that holds hundreds of millions of rows, used every day? That's in an Oracle database, running on a Linux machine.
Is my Tivo a "hobby" system? Does TomTom only make "hobby" devices ("you didn't get where you're going? Oh well, you know it's just a hobby system, right?"). I guess I shouldn't expect much from the routers, phones, and other devices that have put Linux at the core of their stack. I mean, it's just a hobby, right?
So what is a "professional" system to you? Windows? Sure, it's used a lot of professional capacities, sure there's a lot of software available for it, but are you saying it's somehow more "professional" than Linux? Why is that? Because it's written by Microsoft? Is Microsoft somehow more professional than Oracle or IBM?
Your post is breathtaking in its ignorance, and I know I'm doing myself no favors by feeding the trolls, but *come* *on*...at least a descent job of flame baiting would latch on to some obvious, specific weakness and exploit it, rightly or wrongly. This is post is just raving.
There have been several suggestions to replace memcpy with memcpy_s as the safer alternative. That's fine, I guess, if memcpy_s is part of the ANSI/ISO standard for C, which as far as I know, it is not; just like all the *_s functions.
Microsoft says your code is safer when using the *_s, but it will no longer be portable, it'll be Microsoft-only. They put in a warning in the compiler from VS2005 onwards about using "unsafe" functions, and that you should use *_s, which is a pain because you have to disable it as the project level, there doesn't seem to be anywhere that I've found that can just turn it off permanently. Even using the STL that comes with VS2008 will generate these warnings, even if you never do any explicit memory stuff yourself.
Microsoft did the same thing with the _* functions; a lot of them are just wrappers around their ANSI-compliant versions (_sprintf -> sprintf), but are also not portable; I worked with a guy who wrote/tested all his C code in VS6 then gave it to me to port to Unix and VMS, and the compilers would choke on not having these particular functions.
Microsoft is trying to get lock-in at the language level instead of providing a good set of Win32 API-based functions that make using memcpy() unnecessary.
I'm interested in the DX because of its native PDF reader, and nothing else. I probably would never buy a book from Amazon to read on it, because everything I want I can get as a PDF, whether it be something technical or literature.
Because of this, theoretically, I'd be immune to these issues, right? They're my own, drm-free PDFs which can't be remotely deleted or somehow blocked.
I like the *idea* of the Kindle in that I can carry millions of pages of whatever on a very light device with a good screen. I was trying out my mom's Kindle and I was shocked at how much I *really* liked it; the screen was really great and, while I didn't care for the slow page redraws, it wouldn't be a deal-breaker. Thus I like the DX idea even more; bigger screen, and drm-free content.
It's great to see that the rovers have lived on for so long, even if they are showing some wear-n-tear, but given the circumstances, they're clearly well built and I'd buy a used one off ebay any day (uh, shipper pays postage).
I'm curious though, in a totally non-judgmental way, about the cost of the program in general; they expected the rovers to last, what, 90 days? So presumably someone budgeted so many resources here on Earth for people, etc., for that length of time. Since the rovers have been doing such a great job of defying expectations, what kind of effect does that have on the budget for the program; is it sufficiently small enough that it just gets lost in the wash?
Also, since their plans were presumably all built for a 90-day time frame, how do they determine what to do now? Do they take requests from PhD candidates and researchers from around the world?
Okay, I agree with your point; it's the most secure version of Unix, but that isn't the same thing as starting with a fresh sheet of paper and designing an OS that is meant to be bullet-proof.
Though that leads to an interesting question: what *is* a bullet-proof OS? I suppose if I had a amount of money, and was the NSA, I presumably could spend the amount to build some super-duper custom OS that doesn't so much as blink the cursor without a 1024-bit AES-generated certificate.
I mentioned this in another post, but the point of using an Alpha, or a MIPS, or Itanium, or whatever, is not meant to be a cure-all, it's meant to present yet-another-barrier to entry. Since malware typically relies on being pre-compiled, your x86-based exploit isn't going to work. Somehow you find out I'm running OpenBSD on an Itanium. Okay, you have that information, but I've still made your job harder, now you have to go out and get an Itanium to build your malware on before you try to hack my box because you can't assume I'll have a compiler on it (and I would never have a compiler on it).
Using a OS like OpenBSD and a different chip architecture will not guarantee a hack-proof box, but it's going to make it that much harder; if you're just looking for a box to turn into a zombie, it won't be worth it. If you're a foreign government trying to get at my battle plans, the booze-n-hookers method is likely going to be easier and faster.
A lot of malware assumes that if it can get on the system, even if it's just a stub program, it can then open a connection and download the rest of it. Since most malware assumes an x86 architecture, the program is downloaded already compiled for said architecture.
By introducing a less-common processor, first, any pre-compiled code simply won't work. Plus you'd have to now figure out what type of processor your target is using, which is not necessarily easy (if I was maintaining such a machine, I'd make sure no program, like Apache, identified the architecture by stripping out any mention of it on the 404 pages, etc.).
Even assuming you figure out the architecture, the machine would never ever ever have any kind of compiler on it so even if you got into it, you wouldn't be able to build anything, you'd have to get ahold of another machine of a similar chipset and build it separately.
All of this can be done, and sure, you could pick up an Alpha if you want from ebay, but for 99.99% of attacks, no one wants to. If you are a foreign government trying to get at my aircraft blueprints, it might be worth it to try, though I'd argue the booze-n-hookers approach would be easier.
According to their website, it is built for security:
The first sentence under goal: OpenBSD believes in strong security. Our aspiration is to be NUMBER ONE in the industry for security (if we are not already there).
When it comes to stories like this, or the one about the Dali Lama's computers being compromised, etc., I'm always surprised that no one considers using OpenBSD as their operating system; it's the only one that I know of that is specifically, purposely built, for security. Because it's Unix, it can still run pretty much everything (though you want to use the OpenBSD version because it's been reviewed for security holes, etc.).
Seriously, if I wanted to keep my battle plans, aircraft designs, etc. out of the hands of the "enemy", I'd lock them up in an OpenBSD server, preferably on some less-common architecture like the Alpha, so that anyone trying to hack my system would have an enormously hard time.
Yes I understand this doesn't take into consideration social networking. So I'd take a page from the elevated privilege playbook and say that in my organization, no one trusts the person below him/her so as secrets can never flow downhill. Going back to the operating system, this would presumably be handled by ACLs.
Of course, no system is immune from the booze-n-hookers style of temptation, but that's someone else's job; I'm just here to install and configure software. :)
...Duke 3D had fun factor in spades, especially when you include the Duke 3D expansion packs.
To this day, every time I walk into a supermarket I think about how much fun that level was, shooting out the milk section while chasing someone who then ran straight into my trip mine.
Good times...good times...
I watched the video, I saw the screenshots, and I can't believe it's come down to this exact feeling I have looking at all of it:
Eh.
Duke was *special*. It was a FPS in the era of Doom and Quake that gave humor and a personality to the genre. Who here played Doom, then played Doom2, and didn't think "Wow! More of the same!" Quake was especially disappointing insofar as, yes, it was 3-D and all, but it too lacked that certain "something" that kept me playing DN well into the 21st century.
But all of that is gone now. The video and screenshots showed a generic FPS that could have been any game.
Ultimately my feelings directed to the dev team are: "Really? Seriously? Forget the time spent, were you really proud of this?"
Just an FYI: The XO logs everything done on the machine in the "notebook" (I think it's actually called something else but I don't have one with me). It's the first program that starts and I don't think it can be killed.
You'd be able to find out what s/he's done and where s/he's gone pretty quick.
She's 5 feet even, so I guess she figured it would be full-sized for her. She also bought it because she saw it as another way she could "help growing humanity" (her words) so whatever her misunderstanding of the physical specs of the machine, I give her props for her charity.
I got an XO second-hand from someone who had bought it from the G1G1 program, thinking she'd be getting a cheap, full-sized laptop, and was extremely disappointed.
I gave it to the kids and they absolutely love it. They use it for playing around with the paint program ("activity"), some music stuff, etc., Not exactly the "learning" experience a school kid might have with it, but at least they'd rather play with the computer and explore than watch tv.
Frankly, I'm *glad* it doesn't have XP on it; my 4 yo figured out how to do stuff on the XO without having to ask. It uses metaphors that a kid "gets". Do I care she's not "learning what she'll need in the real world?" Can you imagine still hitting the "start" button to do something in twenty years?
Plus I don't have to buy an anti-virus program to install it it. :)
What exactly is Micro Focus buying from Borland since they seem to have divested themselves of everything except something called StarTeam...I went to their website and I'm still not 100% what StarTeam is or does for me.
Maybe that's why they're in dire straits...they make software that takes multiple pages and graphics and bullet points and still doesn't seem to convey exactly how this will help me.
Maybe they go by web logs, but I and my friends have many Linux-based devices; I have a TomTom GPS, my friends have Linksys WRT(Can't remember the num) routers, and I do a lot of work on Linux servers that are completely headless and "somewhere in the cloud".
Linux is bigger than anyone can monitor effectively; so many Linux machines will never touch a web page yet they do useful stuff every day.
BTW, do they break it out by platform? If so, I wonder how many people like me are out there using Linux on a PS3.
Pft...anyone can go into a music store in the US and get copies of standard popular drivel like "Let's Hear it for McKinley!" or "The Victoria Waltz", but those stores won't carry the more edgy stuff like "Please Don't Die of the Dropsey, Dear Adeline" or "Miss Merryweather's New Corset".
Until the US realizes that there's a whole market for sheet music and piano rolls that is out of the mainstream, I'm going to keep buying from north of the border.
...because whoever is in charge of it does such a crummy job of explaining what it is and why I should care, and more importantly, why my folks should care.
I got my router set up to use IPv6 (an Apple Time Capsule), and I went searching for some IPv6 love and found practically none. Yes I got to Google, and yes I found a few websites that seemed to do little more than blink(!) "hooray, you are connecting using IPv6! Your address is ..."
IPv6 needs both a killer app (IPv6-only Twitter, anyone?) and some ready-to-explain-why-you-can't-get-to-it documentation that will get the people to *demand* that they have IPv6 addresses.
Until then, it's a 32-bit address space world.