Already been done and now he's doing quite well for himself. He was wrong for doing what he did, and yes so to was the government.
However he is now doing fairly well for himself with his books and appearances on TV. I think AMW last year he was working to help profile a computer hacker.
"Not until it supports IMAP. Why are you holding POP3 up as the gold standard?"
Who says I am? While there *are* far better options for e-mail, POP3 is the standard that by far more ISP's are using than not. It's kind of like Gasoline. There are other options and some of those options are better than gas, but sadly it's what is in the most widespread use.
All I *was* saying, was that GMail is taking steps towards bridging the gap between Web and Desktop mail. Others are as well, but I don't know them, I only know GMail at this point.
And frankly since it does what *I* need it to do, it is the best solution...for *me*.
But on the other hand Webmail is catching up when you consider some of the features of G-Mail.
Gmail has the distinct advantage of being both web accessible while at the same time also accessible via any pop3 e-mail client.
Sort of a "cake and eat it too" scenario.
I currently use Thunderbird to keep track of the 4 accounts that my wife and I use. I also have the ability to access my mail online should I not have my laptop with me. I also have the ability to use GMail as an offsite backup of my mail should I ever have a total OS crash and need to reinstall. The large amount of storage on the gmail servers plus the ability to re-download anything stored on the gmail servers means that I can restore my local copy of my emails.
If more webmail sites used gmail's strategy, webmail would likely catch up to pop3 and possibly surpass it
That's the part that saddens us hardcore gamers/star trek fans. The fact that you have a rich palette to work with, but it never seems to work. The games either sound really nifty but suck when it comes right down to gameplay, or the game play is excellent, but they use a lackluster plot and/or poor storytelling
The gameplay side of it seems to stem from the fact that the designers love to put in all the bells and whistles of life on a starship, but they put in way too much. They make you micro-manage every last living detail. Sure, it's fun to have to have the challenge of re-routing power to keep the shields up, or to do triage in sickbay, or to try to get the ship to fly between the enemy ships in order to get them to shoot each other, but all at the same time during the same combat? Seriously, a game that "puts you in the center seat" as Captain shouldn't make you do your job and Scotty's (and Chekov's, and Uhura's, and Sulu's, etc) as well.
The opposite side of this is where they get the game play right, but bore you to tears with the story. Star Trek Voyager Elite Force is a great example. It's Quake 3 Arena with phasers...how could they screw up the gameplay? But the story was repetitive. Beam over and shoot this, beam over and shoot that, stay here and shoot the funky thing with all the eyes. Rarely was there something other than "Shoot, Collect, and flip the switch" missions.
In fact the one that was really fun was the mission where you had to sneak past all the Klingons without letting them know you were there...and even then you had to get the isodesium and blast your way out.
If they could do something akin to the later Wing Commander games where there was a story (a real honest to Goddess plot) and a wide array of missions where you play different roles, you'd be a step or two in the right direction
They have shown that dolphins have pattern recognition, the ability to learn and to anticipate the next part of a sequence. Dolphins have a language in which they commnicate with others of thier species. They have complex social structures. They can solve puzzles, they can be trained to do complex tasks.
I'm not saying that they're as smart as me, but they are at least as smart as other higher order animals, and certainly smarter than my goldfish who keeps trying to commit suicide.
Frankly I like Open Office for what it is, not what it isn't doing compared to other word processors.
It is: 1. Free - I don't have the $300 to shell out every time MS releases it's latest offering 2. Easy to use - I can find every function I use in a word processor/spreadsheet/presentation software 3. Full featured - I'm not doing anything esoteric in my writing, I just need something that can outline, can format, can check my horrific spelling, and can automatically add page numbers at the bottom. I'm an amateur short story writer, I don't NEED more. 4. Small - The download is 74 megs and installs into a much smaller footprint than MS office. 5. Downloadable - I'm never worried about losing the CD the next time I have to reinstall my system. If you lose or damage a MS Office CD you have to jump through so many hoops to get a new one
The fact that it lacks an email client is not an issue for me either since my client of choice is Thunderbird. Open Office is perfect for the average user since it is easy get, install and to use. Granted that MS Office has more features, but what good are they to me if I don't use them. Why shell out $300 for a product that I can find a suitable replacement for free?
The one with more features isn't "better" unless you need them. MS Office is probably 'better' in a professional environment just the same way that OO is 'better' for me.
Actually my local SCA group is trying to contact the makers of the armor to see if we can get our hands on a suit of the stuff for our heavy combat. We'd still use traditional metal armor over the suit, but the advantages for full coverage over areas where armor is light or perhaps missing due to a malfunction are considerable.
Basicaly if it'll protect a skier zipping downhill and whacking into a fiberglass pole, then it ought to help a SCAdian against another chap with bit of a stick.
"The more you try to out-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain." - Cmdr. M. Scott
If there is one thing that many of us have learned over the course of our internet-connected lives is the simple fact that there is a work-around for EVERYTHING.
There has yet to be a copy protection scheme that hasn't been defeated. There is no internet filter that can't be bypassed, and no blocking that can't be dodged.
What the Chinese need to learn is that their efforts are as futile as attacking a funny farm with a banana. Someone will be able to find a way around the blocking and will get to information that the government wants them to get to.
Someone needs to wake them up with a clue-by-four and explain how the real world works
[This is like a car salesman saying, "If I was extremely lucky, I could persuade them to go out and buy some seatbelts from AutoZone down the street, bring them back to us, and we'd install it them in their new car before they even drove it off the lot."]
But we expect that the cars would come to us from assembly plant with the seatbelts installed as per law. A better arguement would be "Why isn't Microsoft installing protection along with Windows?" After all, they offer a firewall and if you know how to get to it (something that the average home user doesn't know) you can get an anti-spyware program. You expect there to be guards on the saw, you expect seatbelts on the car, but those come from the manufacturers. You should be expecting Microsoft (which touts security and stablity...yeah right)to provide it since without an operating system a PC is just an inefficient space heater.
[Why couldn't your store at least have had the antivirus software on sale right there?]
We tried at first. Some people saw an additional cost to the PC and freaked at having to spend the money, others didn't like what we offered (some refused to have anything to do with McAfee, others hated Symantec) and it was not cost effective for us to carry every brand of Anti-Virus on the market to satisfy everyone. Besides, we had a good relationship with the local Staples. We would help people figure out what printer/scanner/camera combination that they needed, sent them to staples. In return Staples sold components and software(CD-Writers, Video Cards, etc) and sent the customers to us to install them.
Since we were a small store that serviced commercial customers more than retail for new PC sales, we couldn't buy in enough bulk to offer the prices for external components to compete. After hearing "But staples has it for $20 cheaper!" we decided to cultivate a relationship with the Manager of the staples across the street. It worked out well for us since our labor revinue went up more than we lost in profit on components.
Commercial customers are easier to deal with since they are concerned with security. You tell them that they need a corporate license of an anti-virus, someone will make known thier brand preference, and we order it and install it on thier new server and across the network. No muss, no fuss.
Frankly this subject has been one of the biggest problems I've had to deal wit hback when I was the service manager at a computer store that serviced retail users. The complete and utter lack of security. This fell into three catagories:
Lack of Anti-Virus Most of the time I tried to hammer it into thier heads that spending $40 now would save them a ton of heartache later. If I was EXTREMLY lucky, I could persuade them to go out and buy the software from Staples, bring it back to us, and we'd install it on thier new machine before it ever left our store and it's own defenses. Most of the time however I'd install the trial version of norton or mcafee, inform them that THEY MUST get the full version before the trial period is over, and STILL see the goddamn thing within two months, loaded with enough viruses to call it the PC version of Typhoid Mary.
The part that sucked was that inspite of a verbal warning, a piece of paper taped to the computer and the monitor warning them that they NEED anti-virus programs, they still came to me with "Well why the @#$% didn't you tell me about this?"
Firewall Actually this is no longer as much of a problem as it used to be now that we're seeing broadband and multiple computers in a house becoming the norm. We used to sell Linksys routers and that became a strong defense. Myself personally I run Norton Internet Security behind my Symantec Firewall/VPN appliance for a two pronged defense and so far I've yet to be broken into (although I've logged a ton of port sniffing attack attempts).
The third problem is Spyware. At least this one is easy to fix. I usually install Spyware Doctor on the system that came into my shop and clean out the system (then uninstalling it unless the customer wanted to buy a license from PC Tools), then I'd install the free programs out there (Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy) to protect them in the future.
Spyware has never been too much of an issue for my customers because I could install a free program and if they ever had a problem I could talk them through the programs over the phone. For the most part that was all they needed so it wasn't too bad of a problem.
It's nice to see that more and more people are getting concerned about security. Just a little effort and a small investment and your computer can be safe with a minimum of fuss.
To say that they've won the war is like saying that Japan won the war when they bombed Pearl Harbor. I'm fairly certain that every tech support guy, network administrator and general techno-geek goes out of thier way to crush, kill, and remove every piece of spyware they can find. I know that I do.
The only thing they won is the attention of the media, and the sales from people who click on everything and anything they see...in short, the kind of people you wish you could set up a Linux box, lock them out of everything more dangerous than thier web browser, and never let them know the root password.
Or is this yet another case of phantom-ware? All we have are a few pictures of an old NES controller with a headphone cable coming out of it.
Big whoop, my little sister could do that. Heck! I have a picture of her with a sandwich in the VCR. What's stopping me from posting that as a VCR hack that'll toast a sandwich like a Quiznos sub?.
Now I'm all for hacking stuff like that but without any notes to tell us how it was done, it's just a waste of bandwidth. Even if I had no intention of doing it, just to be able to say "Ah-ha! so that's how he did it." is more of an interesting read than simply "Oh look, a NES controller with a USB port on it...whoopty-freaking-do."
Hell, the Furby hacking article a few years ago was more interesting than this because they TOLD you which chip they replaced and how to attach the audio in port for recording new audio for the Furby to say. In fact it gave people ideas on how to turn a toy into a tool for helping autistic children by hacking it.
Ok, while the RFID system is a good idea and the technology has proven it's worth in many applications, is it a good idea to have RFID chips for everything we use in real life?
If we used RFID like this one could forsee:
The toaster that adjusts to your desired level of toast The fridge that remembers that you like crushed ice instead of cubed The Tivo that remembers your choices (I know...mentioned in the article) The Car that remembers your seating positions The stereo that remembers your station and desired volume The computer that logs you on as soon as you sit down
The list could go on and on and with each device you need yet another RFID tag. How many of the damn things will we need in the future to go about our daily lives?
I mean it's a good idea and all, but how much will be too much, and how can we rework it so the technology DOESN'T require you to find your RFID tag holder before you go to the can in the morning?
And people wonder why I haven't bought a single CD in the past 5 years that didn't come from an independant artist. Sony will just have to lable me as a heathen devil commie mutant anti-social pirating slime bag since I now get all my music from other sources besides the traditional record industry. First it was a copy protection that killed my CD-Rom drive and my Car Stereo, now we have a major company turning into a @#$%ing hacker with intent on screwing up my system just to keep me from using thier music in THIER OWN MP3 PLAYER.
Yes, I love the fact that Sony wants to sell me a MP3 player and MP3 compatable CD and DVD players, but doesn't want me to actually USE the damn things to listen to thier music.
Go Figure.
The other stupid thing is the simple fact that there is no copy protection that has lasted more than 2 weeks before it was cracked, and at times in the most embarrasing way imaginable.
The one that cost millions to develop and was cracked using a $1.25 Sharpie marker jumps to mind.
Frankly I hope the music industry dies. I'm just so utterly sick to death about the whole goddamn thing I want it gone.
If it is an open source movement and the web site is dead with the possibility of it never going up again, is it not in the realm of possibility that others will pick up the pieces and do another one?
Isn't that the point of Open Source? The ability that others can take the source and do with it as they wish as long as the results are also open source?
The death of a web site doesn't mean the death of the OSWD community...unless no one cares and they all let it die.
For starters, who wants to look at a screen that tiny for any length of time. It's already a bugger to surf the internet on a cell phone as it stands now, much less watch a video of a news article. With a screen that small important details would be rendered too small to be of much use.
Secondly, cell phone battery time is an issue. Anytime you have your phone communicating with the network, you're burning up your available useability. Would you like to explain to your boss that you missed that very important call because your phone snuffed while watching Friends?
Thirdly, there is the cost. How much are people willing to pay for the ability to watch this stuff? This service with enough connection minutes to be actually able to watch anything of interest must cost a bit of cash. I'm more inclined to use that money for Cable.
We're just not ready for this technology as it stands right now. Give it a few years and the tech and the demand will be there...unless something better comes along.
*sigh* Why do people get so annoyed when April 1st gets here? Do people completly forget that today is "April Fools Day"?/. pulls off its annual (say it again *ann-u-al*) April Fools joke every year without fail and people get pissed off like it's the first time it's EVER happened.
So what if the news sites out there are posting bogus news articles. Don't you think that after telling the horrific stories of yet another terrorist attack in some country, more Americans getting snuffed in Iraq, some Butt Buggering Bishiop is bothering the altar boys, or the general dreary news you get day in and day out, that perhaps they might want to cut loose a little?
This is just one day a year where we all can get a little silly and do stupid stuff and jolly well get away with with the only consequence being the possibility of retaliation when the tables get turned and you get pranked.
It's all a game people and it's all in fun. Relax, enjoy the silliness and think back to the times when you used to prank the shit out of your friends and perhaps conjure up a way to get that cubicle-dweller down the hall...he probably deserves it for stealing your paperclips.
Phoenix
(Christ, they'll start bitching at people for wearing Green on St. Patty's Day next)
This was well written and well thought out. Plus it has the extra advantage of being dead on the money when it comes to Spammers and why they flood our mailboxes with crud.
Sadly however, what can be done to make the spammers pay more than the recipients do? So far the best idea I've heard isn't all that great...Micropayment
Micropayment isn't the answer since many people have legit reasons to send out an email to a group of people. List servers, Customer lists (Yes I would like you Turbotax to let me know when the stste module is ready for download), Updates to fans when [insert musical group here] comes into town. All of these things are legit reasons to send out thousands of mails per day to people who really want this information. The costs would be too great and it would be the end of the list server altogether.
What can be done to make the spammers pay and not hurt us...besides a locked room, the spammer, fifteen minutes, and a 14-lb lump hammer?
On this I would have to disagree. The review of one demented fanboy or a smegged off critic by themselves have no value. But in aggregate, the collective reviews will point what things many people liked about the book/movie/cd/electrical appliance as well as what things annoyed people.
I'll always trust in my feelings on something, but my feelings will be based on the description of the item, my need for the item, my penchant for items of that nature, and influenced by the good/bad ratio of the product.
The Author who said: "That anybody is allowed to come in and anonymously trash a book to me is absurd," Rechy told the Times. "How to strike back? Just go in and rebut every single one of them." is a fool.
It is the right of everyone in this country to have an opinion on the quality of work of art. There are always going to be people who enjoy something and people who will dislike it.
Get over it and start living in the real world.
Frankly I'm suspicious of anything or anyone who doesn't have a bad review of it. I'll buy from anyone who has a smidgeon of negative feedback on Ebay because I know that this is a real person who has had to (just as I have in my store) deal with some moron who cannot be pleased no matter how far you bend over backwards. I trust reviews that have a critic because many of thier points are valid ones. I may not agree that the point detracts from the work of art, but they are often valid points nonetheless.
You can't please everyone and these authors need to realize that, move on, and create to please themselves. If they do that there will always be someone to appriciate thier works.
Jesus Christ! Is there anyone SCO won't sue? I can just imagine the next./ article
SCO's next lawsuit target CmdrTaco's Aunt Tilly for her recipe for Scones since the first three letters in it are SCO. Aunt Tilly gives SCO the finger and states "Come near me and my recipe book and I'll let you have it with a rolling pin you bastards"
What I read in the article is pretty dead on to who and what I am, since becoming an active member of the 'net community. I don't watch much in the way of TV anymore as most of it is crap. I read books (John Ashcroft would be shocked). I have an active social life.
I do performing arts, I'm in the SCA, I 'hang out' with my friends.
Thus stands the reason of the difference between the concept of the 'nerd' and the 'geek'.
...since I always skip commercials. Hell I should be classified as a totally unamerican freak since I can honestly say that there are full weeks where I don't even see/hear a commercial.
Even worse I don't even have any form of broadcast/cable/sat television signal coming into my home at all.
Horrors! I must be some sort of terrorist freak since I prefer to spend my time reading books. Were it not for my DVD collection and my PS2 I'd not even have a TV in the house.
Send out the FBI! Notify the NSA! Wake up the CIA spooks! Get John Ashcroft's head out of the collective asses of Americans!
"And if your car runs off the road and hits a tree I'm sure your laptop will "sense" it and magically send help:)"
If that is a feature that you want then paying the $400/year isn't a bad way to go. However it strikes me as pointless to hack an OnStar module voiding all sorts of warranties and crippling most of it's functions just to hook it up to a laptop.
My point is if you're going to bring a laptop to the game, just hook the darn thing up to a $90 GPS and get some sort of mapping program.
Besides, I'm sure that there is someone out there who can figure out how to make a laptop dial out on a cell modem and say Accident at Lat. x, Long. Y, please send help
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.mitnicksecurity.com/
Already been done and now he's doing quite well for himself. He was wrong for doing what he did, and yes so to was the government.
However he is now doing fairly well for himself with his books and appearances on TV. I think AMW last year he was working to help profile a computer hacker.
You want him free? Done and Done.
"Not until it supports IMAP. Why are you holding POP3 up as the gold standard?"
Who says I am? While there *are* far better options for e-mail, POP3 is the standard that by far more ISP's are using than not. It's kind of like Gasoline. There are other options and some of those options are better than gas, but sadly it's what is in the most widespread use.
All I *was* saying, was that GMail is taking steps towards bridging the gap between Web and Desktop mail. Others are as well, but I don't know them, I only know GMail at this point.
And frankly since it does what *I* need it to do, it is the best solution...for *me*.
But on the other hand Webmail is catching up when you consider some of the features of G-Mail.
Gmail has the distinct advantage of being both web accessible while at the same time also accessible via any pop3 e-mail client.
Sort of a "cake and eat it too" scenario.
I currently use Thunderbird to keep track of the 4 accounts that my wife and I use. I also have the ability to access my mail online should I not have my laptop with me. I also have the ability to use GMail as an offsite backup of my mail should I ever have a total OS crash and need to reinstall. The large amount of storage on the gmail servers plus the ability to re-download anything stored on the gmail servers means that I can restore my local copy of my emails.
If more webmail sites used gmail's strategy, webmail would likely catch up to pop3 and possibly surpass it
That's the part that saddens us hardcore gamers/star trek fans. The fact that you have a rich palette to work with, but it never seems to work. The games either sound really nifty but suck when it comes right down to gameplay, or the game play is excellent, but they use a lackluster plot and/or poor storytelling
The gameplay side of it seems to stem from the fact that the designers love to put in all the bells and whistles of life on a starship, but they put in way too much. They make you micro-manage every last living detail. Sure, it's fun to have to have the challenge of re-routing power to keep the shields up, or to do triage in sickbay, or to try to get the ship to fly between the enemy ships in order to get them to shoot each other, but all at the same time during the same combat? Seriously, a game that "puts you in the center seat" as Captain shouldn't make you do your job and Scotty's (and Chekov's, and Uhura's, and Sulu's, etc) as well.
The opposite side of this is where they get the game play right, but bore you to tears with the story. Star Trek Voyager Elite Force is a great example. It's Quake 3 Arena with phasers...how could they screw up the gameplay? But the story was repetitive. Beam over and shoot this, beam over and shoot that, stay here and shoot the funky thing with all the eyes. Rarely was there something other than "Shoot, Collect, and flip the switch" missions.
In fact the one that was really fun was the mission where you had to sneak past all the Klingons without letting them know you were there...and even then you had to get the isodesium and blast your way out.
If they could do something akin to the later Wing Commander games where there was a story (a real honest to Goddess plot) and a wide array of missions where you play different roles, you'd be a step or two in the right direction
Phoenix
They have shown that dolphins have pattern recognition, the ability to learn and to anticipate the next part of a sequence. Dolphins have a language in which they commnicate with others of thier species. They have complex social structures. They can solve puzzles, they can be trained to do complex tasks.
I'm not saying that they're as smart as me, but they are at least as smart as other higher order animals, and certainly smarter than my goldfish who keeps trying to commit suicide.
Frankly I like Open Office for what it is, not what it isn't doing compared to other word processors.
It is:
1. Free - I don't have the $300 to shell out every time MS releases it's latest offering
2. Easy to use - I can find every function I use in a word processor/spreadsheet/presentation software
3. Full featured - I'm not doing anything esoteric in my writing, I just need something that can outline, can format, can check my horrific spelling, and can automatically add page numbers at the bottom. I'm an amateur short story writer, I don't NEED more.
4. Small - The download is 74 megs and installs into a much smaller footprint than MS office.
5. Downloadable - I'm never worried about losing the CD the next time I have to reinstall my system. If you lose or damage a MS Office CD you have to jump through so many hoops to get a new one
The fact that it lacks an email client is not an issue for me either since my client of choice is Thunderbird. Open Office is perfect for the average user since it is easy get, install and to use. Granted that MS Office has more features, but what good are they to me if I don't use them. Why shell out $300 for a product that I can find a suitable replacement for free?
The one with more features isn't "better" unless you need them. MS Office is probably 'better' in a professional environment just the same way that OO is 'better' for me.
It's all perspective and need.
Actually my local SCA group is trying to contact the makers of the armor to see if we can get our hands on a suit of the stuff for our heavy combat. We'd still use traditional metal armor over the suit, but the advantages for full coverage over areas where armor is light or perhaps missing due to a malfunction are considerable.
Basicaly if it'll protect a skier zipping downhill and whacking into a fiberglass pole, then it ought to help a SCAdian against another chap with bit of a stick.
Phoenix
"The more you try to out-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain." - Cmdr. M. Scott
If there is one thing that many of us have learned over the course of our internet-connected lives is the simple fact that there is a work-around for EVERYTHING.
There has yet to be a copy protection scheme that hasn't been defeated. There is no internet filter that can't be bypassed, and no blocking that can't be dodged.
What the Chinese need to learn is that their efforts are as futile as attacking a funny farm with a banana. Someone will be able to find a way around the blocking and will get to information that the government wants them to get to.
Someone needs to wake them up with a clue-by-four and explain how the real world works
Good points, but to refute them
[This is like a car salesman saying, "If I was extremely lucky, I could persuade them to go out and buy some seatbelts from AutoZone down the street, bring them back to us, and we'd install it them in their new car before they even drove it off the lot."]
But we expect that the cars would come to us from assembly plant with the seatbelts installed as per law. A better arguement would be "Why isn't Microsoft installing protection along with Windows?" After all, they offer a firewall and if you know how to get to it (something that the average home user doesn't know) you can get an anti-spyware program. You expect there to be guards on the saw, you expect seatbelts on the car, but those come from the manufacturers. You should be expecting Microsoft (which touts security and stablity...yeah right)to provide it since without an operating system a PC is just an inefficient space heater.
[Why couldn't your store at least have had the antivirus software on sale right there?]
We tried at first. Some people saw an additional cost to the PC and freaked at having to spend the money, others didn't like what we offered (some refused to have anything to do with McAfee, others hated Symantec) and it was not cost effective for us to carry every brand of Anti-Virus on the market to satisfy everyone. Besides, we had a good relationship with the local Staples. We would help people figure out what printer/scanner/camera combination that they needed, sent them to staples. In return Staples sold components and software(CD-Writers, Video Cards, etc) and sent the customers to us to install them.
Since we were a small store that serviced commercial customers more than retail for new PC sales, we couldn't buy in enough bulk to offer the prices for external components to compete. After hearing "But staples has it for $20 cheaper!" we decided to cultivate a relationship with the Manager of the staples across the street. It worked out well for us since our labor revinue went up more than we lost in profit on components.
Commercial customers are easier to deal with since they are concerned with security. You tell them that they need a corporate license of an anti-virus, someone will make known thier brand preference, and we order it and install it on thier new server and across the network. No muss, no fuss.
Frankly this subject has been one of the biggest problems I've had to deal wit hback when I was the service manager at a computer store that serviced retail users. The complete and utter lack of security. This fell into three catagories:
Lack of Anti-Virus
Most of the time I tried to hammer it into thier heads that spending $40 now would save them a ton of heartache later. If I was EXTREMLY lucky, I could persuade them to go out and buy the software from Staples, bring it back to us, and we'd install it on thier new machine before it ever left our store and it's own defenses. Most of the time however I'd install the trial version of norton or mcafee, inform them that THEY MUST get the full version before the trial period is over, and STILL see the goddamn thing within two months, loaded with enough viruses to call it the PC version of Typhoid Mary.
The part that sucked was that inspite of a verbal warning, a piece of paper taped to the computer and the monitor warning them that they NEED anti-virus programs, they still came to me with "Well why the @#$% didn't you tell me about this?"
Firewall
Actually this is no longer as much of a problem as it used to be now that we're seeing broadband and multiple computers in a house becoming the norm. We used to sell Linksys routers and that became a strong defense. Myself personally I run Norton Internet Security behind my Symantec Firewall/VPN appliance for a two pronged defense and so far I've yet to be broken into (although I've logged a ton of port sniffing attack attempts).
The third problem is Spyware.
At least this one is easy to fix. I usually install Spyware Doctor on the system that came into my shop and clean out the system (then uninstalling it unless the customer wanted to buy a license from PC Tools), then I'd install the free programs out there (Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy) to protect them in the future.
Spyware has never been too much of an issue for my customers because I could install a free program and if they ever had a problem I could talk them through the programs over the phone. For the most part that was all they needed so it wasn't too bad of a problem.
It's nice to see that more and more people are getting concerned about security. Just a little effort and a small investment and your computer can be safe with a minimum of fuss.
To say that they've won the war is like saying that Japan won the war when they bombed Pearl Harbor. I'm fairly certain that every tech support guy, network administrator and general techno-geek goes out of thier way to crush, kill, and remove every piece of spyware they can find. I know that I do.
The only thing they won is the attention of the media, and the sales from people who click on everything and anything they see...in short, the kind of people you wish you could set up a Linux box, lock them out of everything more dangerous than thier web browser, and never let them know the root password.
Morons.
Or is this yet another case of phantom-ware? All we have are a few pictures of an old NES controller with a headphone cable coming out of it.
Big whoop, my little sister could do that. Heck! I have a picture of her with a sandwich in the VCR. What's stopping me from posting that as a VCR hack that'll toast a sandwich like a Quiznos sub?.
Now I'm all for hacking stuff like that but without any notes to tell us how it was done, it's just a waste of bandwidth. Even if I had no intention of doing it, just to be able to say "Ah-ha! so that's how he did it." is more of an interesting read than simply "Oh look, a NES controller with a USB port on it...whoopty-freaking-do."
Hell, the Furby hacking article a few years ago was more interesting than this because they TOLD you which chip they replaced and how to attach the audio in port for recording new audio for the Furby to say. In fact it gave people ideas on how to turn a toy into a tool for helping autistic children by hacking it.
Phoenix
Ok, while the RFID system is a good idea and the technology has proven it's worth in many applications, is it a good idea to have RFID chips for everything we use in real life?
If we used RFID like this one could forsee:
The toaster that adjusts to your desired level of toast
The fridge that remembers that you like crushed ice instead of cubed
The Tivo that remembers your choices (I know...mentioned in the article)
The Car that remembers your seating positions
The stereo that remembers your station and desired volume
The computer that logs you on as soon as you sit down
The list could go on and on and with each device you need yet another RFID tag. How many of the damn things will we need in the future to go about our daily lives?
I mean it's a good idea and all, but how much will be too much, and how can we rework it so the technology DOESN'T require you to find your RFID tag holder before you go to the can in the morning?
Phoenix
And people wonder why I haven't bought a single CD in the past 5 years that didn't come from an independant artist. Sony will just have to lable me as a heathen devil commie mutant anti-social pirating slime bag since I now get all my music from other sources besides the traditional record industry. First it was a copy protection that killed my CD-Rom drive and my Car Stereo, now we have a major company turning into a @#$%ing hacker with intent on screwing up my system just to keep me from using thier music in THIER OWN MP3 PLAYER.
Yes, I love the fact that Sony wants to sell me a MP3 player and MP3 compatable CD and DVD players, but doesn't want me to actually USE the damn things to listen to thier music.
Go Figure.
The other stupid thing is the simple fact that there is no copy protection that has lasted more than 2 weeks before it was cracked, and at times in the most embarrasing way imaginable.
The one that cost millions to develop and was cracked using a $1.25 Sharpie marker jumps to mind.
Frankly I hope the music industry dies. I'm just so utterly sick to death about the whole goddamn thing I want it gone.
Phoenix
If it is an open source movement and the web site is dead with the possibility of it never going up again, is it not in the realm of possibility that others will pick up the pieces and do another one?
Isn't that the point of Open Source? The ability that others can take the source and do with it as they wish as long as the results are also open source?
The death of a web site doesn't mean the death of the OSWD community...unless no one cares and they all let it die.
Phoenix
For starters, who wants to look at a screen that tiny for any length of time. It's already a bugger to surf the internet on a cell phone as it stands now, much less watch a video of a news article. With a screen that small important details would be rendered too small to be of much use.
Secondly, cell phone battery time is an issue. Anytime you have your phone communicating with the network, you're burning up your available useability. Would you like to explain to your boss that you missed that very important call because your phone snuffed while watching Friends?
Thirdly, there is the cost. How much are people willing to pay for the ability to watch this stuff? This service with enough connection minutes to be actually able to watch anything of interest must cost a bit of cash. I'm more inclined to use that money for Cable.
We're just not ready for this technology as it stands right now. Give it a few years and the tech and the demand will be there...unless something better comes along.
Phoenix
*sigh* Why do people get so annoyed when April 1st gets here? Do people completly forget that today is "April Fools Day"? /. pulls off its annual (say it again *ann-u-al*) April Fools joke every year without fail and people get pissed off like it's the first time it's EVER happened.
So what if the news sites out there are posting bogus news articles. Don't you think that after telling the horrific stories of yet another terrorist attack in some country, more Americans getting snuffed in Iraq, some Butt Buggering Bishiop is bothering the altar boys, or the general dreary news you get day in and day out, that perhaps they might want to cut loose a little?
This is just one day a year where we all can get a little silly and do stupid stuff and jolly well get away with with the only consequence being the possibility of retaliation when the tables get turned and you get pranked.
It's all a game people and it's all in fun. Relax, enjoy the silliness and think back to the times when you used to prank the shit out of your friends and perhaps conjure up a way to get that cubicle-dweller down the hall...he probably deserves it for stealing your paperclips.
Phoenix
(Christ, they'll start bitching at people for wearing Green on St. Patty's Day next)
This was well written and well thought out. Plus it has the extra advantage of being dead on the money when it comes to Spammers and why they flood our mailboxes with crud.
Sadly however, what can be done to make the spammers pay more than the recipients do? So far the best idea I've heard isn't all that great...Micropayment
Micropayment isn't the answer since many people have legit reasons to send out an email to a group of people. List servers, Customer lists (Yes I would like you Turbotax to let me know when the stste module is ready for download), Updates to fans when [insert musical group here] comes into town. All of these things are legit reasons to send out thousands of mails per day to people who really want this information. The costs would be too great and it would be the end of the list server altogether.
What can be done to make the spammers pay and not hurt us...besides a locked room, the spammer, fifteen minutes, and a 14-lb lump hammer?
On this I would have to disagree. The review of one demented fanboy or a smegged off critic by themselves have no value. But in aggregate, the collective reviews will point what things many people liked about the book/movie/cd/electrical appliance as well as what things annoyed people.
I'll always trust in my feelings on something, but my feelings will be based on the description of the item, my need for the item, my penchant for items of that nature, and influenced by the good/bad ratio of the product.
The Author who said: "That anybody is allowed to come in and anonymously trash a book to me is absurd," Rechy told the Times. "How to strike back? Just go in and rebut every single one of them." is a fool.
It is the right of everyone in this country to have an opinion on the quality of work of art. There are always going to be people who enjoy something and people who will dislike it.
Get over it and start living in the real world.
Frankly I'm suspicious of anything or anyone who doesn't have a bad review of it. I'll buy from anyone who has a smidgeon of negative feedback on Ebay because I know that this is a real person who has had to (just as I have in my store) deal with some moron who cannot be pleased no matter how far you bend over backwards. I trust reviews that have a critic because many of thier points are valid ones. I may not agree that the point detracts from the work of art, but they are often valid points nonetheless.
You can't please everyone and these authors need to realize that, move on, and create to please themselves. If they do that there will always be someone to appriciate thier works.
I swear, the Hubble repair mission is up and down more times than a pair of kangaroos in the mating season.
Jesus Christ! Is there anyone SCO won't sue? I can just imagine the next ./ article
SCO's next lawsuit target CmdrTaco's Aunt Tilly for her recipe for Scones since the first three letters in it are SCO. Aunt Tilly gives SCO the finger and states "Come near me and my recipe book and I'll let you have it with a rolling pin you bastards"
Phoenix
What I read in the article is pretty dead on to who and what I am, since becoming an active member of the 'net community. I don't watch much in the way of TV anymore as most of it is crap. I read books (John Ashcroft would be shocked). I have an active social life.
I do performing arts, I'm in the SCA, I 'hang out' with my friends.
Thus stands the reason of the difference between the concept of the 'nerd' and the 'geek'.
...since I always skip commercials. Hell I should be classified as a totally unamerican freak since I can honestly say that there are full weeks where I don't even see/hear a commercial.
Even worse I don't even have any form of broadcast/cable/sat television signal coming into my home at all.
Horrors! I must be some sort of terrorist freak since I prefer to spend my time reading books. Were it not for my DVD collection and my PS2 I'd not even have a TV in the house.
Send out the FBI! Notify the NSA! Wake up the CIA spooks! Get John Ashcroft's head out of the collective asses of Americans!
The Television Anti-Christ stalks the Earth
"And if your car runs off the road and hits a tree I'm sure your laptop will "sense" it and magically send help :)"
If that is a feature that you want then paying the $400/year isn't a bad way to go. However it strikes me as pointless to hack an OnStar module voiding all sorts of warranties and crippling most of it's functions just to hook it up to a laptop.
My point is if you're going to bring a laptop to the game, just hook the darn thing up to a $90 GPS and get some sort of mapping program.
Besides, I'm sure that there is someone out there who can figure out how to make a laptop dial out on a cell modem and say Accident at Lat. x, Long. Y, please send help