Windows Media Center sucks completely as you get Draconian DRM with mediocre on a machine that can get viruses and works on it. Five bucks says you've never actually owned or used a Media Center PC.
I've never experienced a problem with DRM on my shuttle with MCE 2005, which is connected to my Directv HD receiver. I've also not had a problem recording HD content. Though the HD is downsized to 720x480, it still looks much better than SD. Media center will even burn the shows you record to a standard DVD for you. DRM? What DRM?
I bet my tenant horror stories much more horrifying than your landlord horror stories. Being a landlord, especially one with multiple properties tends to turn the nicest people into complete assholes.
What you are describing is technically not a problem with Windows. It's a problem with the majority of programs written for Windows. Each user in Windows has their own registry hive, which is a separate file that can be moved to other Windows machines. Programs, if written properkly can install in a users home directory and keep all of their settings in the users portion of the registry. but most programs dump their config settings into hkey_local_machine instead of hkey_current user.
I mean, how can INI files be doomed when/etc is alive and well after 35 years of growth? They aren't "doomed", but accessing text config files is very slow when they grow to a large size. While there are disadvantages to using a database for config settings, there are certainly disadvantages to using text files too.
And noone ever claimed that parsing/etc/fstab took too much time That's because/etc/fstab is typically only a few lines and typically not read very often. Config files that have the potential to grow to hundreds of lines, and need to be parsed frequently are usually converted into binary form so they can be accessed faster. An example of the top of my head would be the aliases database for postfix, which is written as a text file and then must converted into a binary form for use by postfix. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think gnome also uses a binary format to store configuration settings.
Firefox does Not suffer this issue on VISTA. current solution is to use Firefox to authenticate and optionally use IE7 later.b Actually I got an email from a former student intern who is taking online classes. He said that he was having problems with blackboard with both IE7 and firefox 2.0 on Vista.
This is why I think the problems with Blackboard are a Java applet problem and not a browser problem. I advised him to turn off UAC and see if that helped, but haven't heard back from him yet.
I mean really, how hard is it to delete those 2 little characters once you've checked the script for bash-specific code? It's not. I was just bitching about something insignificant.
The Java applets have always required Sun's JRE, and Microsoft's JRE has been EOLed for a long time now, so I doubt it. Blackboard has had problems working with IE6 recently, and has a very long history of stupid client side bugs, so it not working with IE7 on Vista is hardly a surprise to me.
From the view of a sysadmin, blackboard is just as maddening. Have a look at this blog for an idea of how I feel.
BTW, your remodeled house looks great. My wife and I are doing a bunch of work on ours ATM.
I've used that quote before, but try not to use it anymore, as it paints me as someone who hates linux.
But as someone who went from being a Windows only sysadmin directly over to Free/OpenBSD around four years ago, I can attest that one of the two main reasons I chose to learn *nix using BSD instead of linux was the community. While there are zealots in every group the signal to noise ratio in the BSD community seems to be much higher. The extra "noise" in the linux community is probably the result of desktop linux users who have recently switched over from Windows (more power to them BTW) and still havne't gotten over the novelty factor. The other reason for me being drawn to BSD over Linux was of course the *documentation*.
But I don't hate (or even dislike) linux at all. I've worked with it at work sparingly, and my only comment on it is that the "info" system does indeed blow and being used to BSD, it's a bit annoying to have to learn new syntax for many of the commands.
Oh, and straying even more offtopic, one thing that really annoys me is the assumption by linux users that everyone in the universe has bash installed on their system, and uses it as their default shell. Slightly more annoying is the fact that these users will put !#/bin/bash at the start of their shell scripts, and write scripts with no bash-specific syntax.
This software should have been tested not only by the company selling it but ALSO BY THE DAMNED IT DEPARTMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY before deploying it live. Where I work we have not deployed IE7 or Vista due to Blackboard and a couple of other apps, but it really doesn't matter with blackboard, because a high number of online students don't use school computers to access blackboard. They use their own. And it doesn't matter if you tell them ahead of time that Vista doesn't work with Blackboard because they never pay attention to announcements anyway.
Blackboard should have seen this coming and should have been ready. They had a ton of time to test with the BETAS, RCs and even the RTM version before Vista was RTM for consumers.
I run a blackboard server and have done so for around five years.
Blackboard has moved from a pure perl based app to a pure tomcat driven app over the years and now they make heavy use of client side java applets. I suspect their poorly written java applets are the cause or all the problems with Vista.
hardcoded all its paths to the root of the directory it's running from (so you need to map a drive specifically for that piece of software What's better is the software that expects to run from d:\ (because everyone's CD drive is d: right?)
Or software that specifically checks that "d:" is a CDROM drive - so that even if you map a drive to d: it still asks you to "please insert the CDROM".
I've found that if you talk to the vendors (if they are still in business) and explain to them the troubles that are caused by not being able to deploy and run software from a central location, they are sometimes very receptive to suggestions. One vendor got very excited after I explained to them the concept of UNCs and being able to run software from them.
We have a few software packages that will run completely off of a UNC path, which is awesome, because deploying them mean making an 80kb msi that throws a shortcut onto the start menu. Others, as you know, are not so friendly.
I believe you are right and I believe that it will be in the future. Microsoft is introducting a form of it with Vista (IE protected mode is made possible by MIC), and Linux vendors like Novell (App Armour) and Redhat (SELinux) have been deploying it for awhile now.
It can do that without root too. It would just have to install them in the user's space.
It can't do nasty things like hook the kernel though - which is good.
So, now you quite literally HAVE TO pay $1100 for a laptop to get something that runs... More like $750.00*, which is a bit closer to $500 that $1100.
*$744 is the cost of a ThinkPad R60e with 1GB of RAM and Vista Home Premium according to Lenovo's site right now
I've been running Vista Business on my Alienware laptop that is nearly three years old (PIII 3.0GHz and 1GB RAM) and the performance, although slower than XP pro, has not been dismal at all.
For Vista 2GB is certainly preferable, but 1GB is sufficient unless you are doing some heavy lifting, and in that case, the sub $1000 market is irrelevant to you anyway.
As an author we're allowed a great deal of flexibility in the interest of "style." Grammar itself isn't the strict set of rules people often think. I take it you're in the MFA department.;)
My wife is a MA student working on her Masters in English.
Thanks. Though your answer and the AC's answer above contradict each other I get the feeling that yours is correct.
From the first rule, I assume that OSX also uses natd and has it on but doing nothing by default too?
It seems weird to me to have both the ipfw and natd on by default...and doing nothing. In FreeBSD, I can load them up and shut them down on the fly after boot-up. Can you not do this in OSX?
Forgive my stupid questions. I really need to get a hold of one of the G5s we have here and work and play with it.
Slashdot Mirror
I've never experienced a problem with DRM on my shuttle with MCE 2005, which is connected to my Directv HD receiver. I've also not had a problem recording HD content. Though the HD is downsized to 720x480, it still looks much better than SD. Media center will even burn the shows you record to a standard DVD for you. DRM? What DRM?
To Apple leghumpers, the truth is 'Overrated'.
None of those are likely, though bad admins make anything possible.
So what exploit in IIS6 do you think let this hack happen?
I bet my tenant horror stories much more horrifying than your landlord horror stories. Being a landlord, especially one with multiple properties tends to turn the nicest people into complete assholes.
What you are describing is technically not a problem with Windows. It's a problem with the majority of programs written for Windows. Each user in Windows has their own registry hive, which is a separate file that can be moved to other Windows machines. Programs, if written properkly can install in a users home directory and keep all of their settings in the users portion of the registry. but most programs dump their config settings into hkey_local_machine instead of hkey_current user.
This is why I think the problems with Blackboard are a Java applet problem and not a browser problem. I advised him to turn off UAC and see if that helped, but haven't heard back from him yet.
What the hell does the ANI flaw have to do with hacking Vista's kernel and running unsigned code?
The Java applets have always required Sun's JRE, and Microsoft's JRE has been EOLed for a long time now, so I doubt it. Blackboard has had problems working with IE6 recently, and has a very long history of stupid client side bugs, so it not working with IE7 on Vista is hardly a surprise to me.
From the view of a sysadmin, blackboard is just as maddening. Have a look at this blog for an idea of how I feel.
BTW, your remodeled house looks great. My wife and I are doing a bunch of work on ours ATM.
I've used that quote before, but try not to use it anymore, as it paints me as someone who hates linux.
But as someone who went from being a Windows only sysadmin directly over to Free/OpenBSD around four years ago, I can attest that one of the two main reasons I chose to learn *nix using BSD instead of linux was the community. While there are zealots in every group the signal to noise ratio in the BSD community seems to be much higher. The extra "noise" in the linux community is probably the result of desktop linux users who have recently switched over from Windows (more power to them BTW) and still havne't gotten over the novelty factor. The other reason for me being drawn to BSD over Linux was of course the *documentation*.
But I don't hate (or even dislike) linux at all. I've worked with it at work sparingly, and my only comment on it is that the "info" system does indeed blow and being used to BSD, it's a bit annoying to have to learn new syntax for many of the commands.
Oh, and straying even more offtopic, one thing that really annoys me is the assumption by linux users that everyone in the universe has bash installed on their system, and uses it as their default shell. Slightly more annoying is the fact that these users will put !#/bin/bash at the start of their shell scripts, and write scripts with no bash-specific syntax.
I call bullshit on the sack shaving anecdote.
But based on the comments I see all over the net from certain Linux advocates, I have to wonder a little bit.
Blackboard should have seen this coming and should have been ready. They had a ton of time to test with the BETAS, RCs and even the RTM version before Vista was RTM for consumers.
But it's Blackboard, so I'm hardly surprised.
Keep wasting your mod points asshole. I have karma to spare.
I run a blackboard server and have done so for around five years. Blackboard has moved from a pure perl based app to a pure tomcat driven app over the years and now they make heavy use of client side java applets. I suspect their poorly written java applets are the cause or all the problems with Vista.
Is security not a good enough reason?
Or software that specifically checks that "d:" is a CDROM drive - so that even if you map a drive to d: it still asks you to "please insert the CDROM".
I've found that if you talk to the vendors (if they are still in business) and explain to them the troubles that are caused by not being able to deploy and run software from a central location, they are sometimes very receptive to suggestions. One vendor got very excited after I explained to them the concept of UNCs and being able to run software from them.
We have a few software packages that will run completely off of a UNC path, which is awesome, because deploying them mean making an 80kb msi that throws a shortcut onto the start menu. Others, as you know, are not so friendly.
To the moderator who modded my post overrated:
Fuck you.
I believe you are right and I believe that it will be in the future. Microsoft is introducting a form of it with Vista (IE protected mode is made possible by MIC), and Linux vendors like Novell (App Armour) and Redhat (SELinux) have been deploying it for awhile now.
It can do that without root too. It would just have to install them in the user's space. It can't do nasty things like hook the kernel though - which is good.
*$744 is the cost of a ThinkPad R60e with 1GB of RAM and Vista Home Premium according to Lenovo's site right now
I've been running Vista Business on my Alienware laptop that is nearly three years old (PIII 3.0GHz and 1GB RAM) and the performance, although slower than XP pro, has not been dismal at all.
For Vista 2GB is certainly preferable, but 1GB is sufficient unless you are doing some heavy lifting, and in that case, the sub $1000 market is irrelevant to you anyway.
My wife is a MA student working on her Masters in English.
Thanks. Though your answer and the AC's answer above contradict each other I get the feeling that yours is correct.
From the first rule, I assume that OSX also uses natd and has it on but doing nothing by default too?
It seems weird to me to have both the ipfw and natd on by default...and doing nothing. In FreeBSD, I can load them up and shut them down on the fly after boot-up. Can you not do this in OSX?
Forgive my stupid questions. I really need to get a hold of one of the G5s we have here and work and play with it.