During the checkout phase, you get a code. You log on to your bank/credit card/whatever account, paste that code into a field to authorize the funds, and get an order confirmation from the place where you bought your stuff.
Its been on preorder for me for a month now. I'm not a big gamer but HL was such a gripping game to play and the mods are so good they definitely brought a new dimension to gaming for me. Heres hoping its as good as its predecessor.
Like you, I'm not a big gamer, infact I've only ever bought Quake1, HL1, GTA VC, and I've had HL2 on order for over 12 months, and upgraded my graphics card 11 months ago in anticipation of a release in the Autumn of 2003.
Now my 11 month old graphics card is looking a little dated, so I've just ordered another graphics card in anticipation of the HL2 release.
Which will be first? Longshot^h^h^h^hhorn, HL2 or my 3rd graphics card:)
But if an installer can switch off Windows Firewall, so could an attacker, argues Zone Labs, maker of the popular ZoneAlarm firewall. The company says its own products are locked down in such a way that third-party applications can't disable firewall protection without uninstalling the software.
What zone alarm fail to mention is that a third party application can easily uninstall zonealarm. A simple call to the msiexec utility is all that is required, and it can be done without the user being made aware.
Anyone remember a certain media player bundled with spyware that uninstalled Ad Aware?
Maybe the problem is with another part of your system? I only wonder this because I've been using Firefox as my primary browser since the day 0.1 was anounced on slashdot. I've never seen it lock up once, and I have slashdot set as my homepage.
I regulary use it on different platforms, and have deployed it to a network of over 500 windows computers, and never had a single problem reported.
I've probably seen firefox crash less than five times in this time. Not bad for a 0.x release really.
I've been running two WinXP machines with no virus scanners for 2 years, neither of them are infected with viruses, worms, or other malicious programs.
Out of interest, How do you know you don't have a virus or worm if you don't run av software?
I'm quite interested in seeing the first tools to take advantage of System.DirectoryServices, as this should enable us to manage a windows Active Directory natively from Linux.
Here in the UK we pay stupid prices for our fuel. Our Diesel costs a tiny fraction more than than unleaded petrol (read Gasoline).
Now for some maths (not my best subject so please correct me if I'm wrong)
We pay on average of 0.80p per litre.
1 us gallon = 3.785 uk litres
Per US gallon we pay 3.03GBP
3.03GBP = aprox 5.30USD (if these rates are correct)
So we pay around 3 times what you guys pay.
This is all thanks to our government who have decided to tax our fuel at a rate of 340%. Our government must be laughing with the looming oil crisis as this is going to be a great extra revenue generator for them.
Most of it seems to be an exact replica of MS look and feel - the same start button, the task bar, task trays, heck even the colour variations!
Maybe it is done to make users used to using windows feel more at home with Linux. I just don't see the point. It isn't windows, it won't (natively) run windows apps. If you want your OS to look like windows and you want to run windows apps, then why not just use windows?
What kind of message do distros like this put out to non Linux users? When a non Linux user attempts to use windows applications on these distribution and don't understand why it doesn't work, they will just think that Linux is a free version of windows that isn't as good.
Linux isn't windows, and IMHO should not attempt to emulate it, because it does it very badly. A nicely configured KDE/Gnome/XFCE/ can look many times nicer than windows, and people used to using windows won't expect it to behave just like windows.
If users would simply run windows update and download a ~1Mb patch, then this worm would not be a problem.
If these users can't be bothered to download and install a 1Mb hotfix, what are the chances of them downloading and installing a service pack that is > 250Mb?
emerge sync && emerge -uD --fetchonly world && emerge -uD world && etc-update
This way if any part of the update process fails the remaining parts won't execute and you get to see what the error is before it scrolls of the top of your console.
Personally I would never emerge anything on my systems without first checking it with the '-p' option. I like to know what any install/updates will do to my systems before I do it for real.
Risc OS has used this approach since the mid/late 1980's when the OS was launched on the Acorn Archimedes.
The only shared libraries are the ones built into the OS. (The OS was on ROM, so version incompatibilties didn't really exist like they would with the disk based OS's we use today).
Their where special files placed in each directory (!boot and !run)
!boot was executed when the filemanager loaded the directory and was responsible for replacing the applications default 'dir' icon with one that represented the application function.
!run was executed when the user launched the program by double clicking on the folder.
It was possible to open the directory rather than execute the application, IIRC a shift key was used in conjunction with a mouse click.
Disclaimer: It's about 15 years since I used the above system, so details may be inaccurate.
I agree entirely with what you are saying, as I get paid to do exactly what you describe at another ComapnyX, but I'd sooner trust a hotfix from Microsoft (or other vendor), than trust the code from any virus coder.
In this particular case, I believe the hotfix is not a recent one, but is a tried and tested patch.
I suspect that anyone who gets hit by this virus has almost certainly already got a multitude of viruses on their computer already. The fact that this virus will leave the machine in an unbootable state can only be a good thing for other internet users.
A nice piece of scaremongering - I did wonder if today was 1st April when I read this. If the person who submitted this/. story had actually read the article he submitted he wouldn't need to ask how users can protect themselves against this virus. The article clearly states that anyone who keeps their system up-to-date with critical hotfixes will not be troubled by this virus.
Slashdot Mirror
During the checkout phase, you get a code. You log on to your bank/credit card/whatever account, paste that code into a field to authorize the funds, and get an order confirmation from the place where you bought your stuff.
You are describing the reverse of this !
Its been on preorder for me for a month now. I'm not a big gamer but HL was such a gripping game to play and the mods are so good they definitely brought a new dimension to gaming for me. Heres hoping its as good as its predecessor.
:)
Like you, I'm not a big gamer, infact I've only ever bought Quake1, HL1, GTA VC, and I've had HL2 on order for over 12 months, and upgraded my graphics card 11 months ago in anticipation of a release in the Autumn of 2003.
Now my 11 month old graphics card is looking a little dated, so I've just ordered another graphics card in anticipation of the HL2 release.
Which will be first? Longshot^h^h^h^hhorn, HL2 or my 3rd graphics card
Quote from PCWorld:
But if an installer can switch off Windows Firewall, so could an attacker, argues Zone Labs, maker of the popular ZoneAlarm firewall. The company says its own products are locked down in such a way that third-party applications can't disable firewall protection without uninstalling the software.
What zone alarm fail to mention is that a third party application can easily uninstall zonealarm. A simple call to the msiexec utility is all that is required, and it can be done without the user being made aware.
Anyone remember a certain media player bundled with spyware that uninstalled Ad Aware?
$ man women
No manual entry for women
D'oh!
Here's why
Occaisionally the slashdot homepage will not fully render in Firefox. It will appear blank except for images until a reload or two is done.
I've seen this a few times, but it's been a while since I last saw it happen.
The comments pages also tend to be text-biased too far left on occaision, rendering the comments' text a bit into the Sections and help left-sidebar.
For what it's worth, this is caused by the vertical ad on the right side of the page.
Even with the Adblock extension it still exhibits this behaviour.
I really have no reason to go back to IE. Except for a few passwords I have stored in IE that I have no idea what they are... grrr!
You have no excuses now.
Maybe the problem is with another part of your system? I only wonder this because I've been using Firefox as my primary browser since the day 0.1 was anounced on slashdot. I've never seen it lock up once, and I have slashdot set as my homepage.
I regulary use it on different platforms, and have deployed it to a network of over 500 windows computers, and never had a single problem reported.
I've probably seen firefox crash less than five times in this time. Not bad for a 0.x release really.
I've been running two WinXP machines with no virus scanners for 2 years, neither of them are infected with viruses, worms, or other malicious programs.
Out of interest, How do you know you don't have a virus or worm if you don't run av software?
We have a problem: grep doesn't exist on any computer that has a lot of browsing activity.
/i "javascript" *.*
Just for info:
find
It won't recurse subdirectories, but at least it's a start.
Cost of that $11k was well over $4M.
In the voice of Nelson Muntz... Ha Ha!
I'm quite interested in seeing the first tools to take advantage of System.DirectoryServices, as this should enable us to manage a windows Active Directory natively from Linux.
Here in the UK we pay stupid prices for our fuel. Our Diesel costs a tiny fraction more than than unleaded petrol (read Gasoline).
Now for some maths (not my best subject so please correct me if I'm wrong)
We pay on average of 0.80p per litre.
1 us gallon = 3.785 uk litres
Per US gallon we pay 3.03GBP
3.03GBP = aprox 5.30USD (if these rates are correct)
So we pay around 3 times what you guys pay.
This is all thanks to our government who have decided to tax our fuel at a rate of 340%. Our government must be laughing with the looming oil crisis as this is going to be a great extra revenue generator for them.
Arch Linux is a disto with a very good package management system. Kind of like the Gentoo portage, but binary based instead of source based.
I always found it ironic that I never got a virus until I started using virus software again.
:-p
Most users don't realise they have a virus until they start using antivirus software.
Even Norton Internet Security isn't half bad.
Don't be so sure
Most of it seems to be an exact replica of MS look and feel - the same start button, the task bar, task trays, heck even the colour variations!
Maybe it is done to make users used to using windows feel more at home with Linux. I just don't see the point. It isn't windows, it won't (natively) run windows apps. If you want your OS to look like windows and you want to run windows apps, then why not just use windows?
What kind of message do distros like this put out to non Linux users? When a non Linux user attempts to use windows applications on these distribution and don't understand why it doesn't work, they will just think that Linux is a free version of windows that isn't as good.
Linux isn't windows, and IMHO should not attempt to emulate it, because it does it very badly. A nicely configured KDE/Gnome/XFCE/ can look many times nicer than windows, and people used to using windows won't expect it to behave just like windows.
A firewall is a poor substitute for patching.
If users would simply run windows update and download a ~1Mb patch, then this worm would not be a problem.
If these users can't be bothered to download and install a 1Mb hotfix, what are the chances of them downloading and installing a service pack that is > 250Mb?
It would be good practice to use
emerge sync && emerge -uD --fetchonly world && emerge -uD world && etc-update
This way if any part of the update process fails the remaining parts won't execute and you get to see what the error is before it scrolls of the top of your console.
Personally I would never emerge anything on my systems without first checking it with the '-p' option. I like to know what any install/updates will do to my systems before I do it for real.
There is some info about the game on this page.
6502 assembly source code
Risc OS has used this approach since the mid/late 1980's when the OS was launched on the Acorn Archimedes.
The only shared libraries are the ones built into the OS. (The OS was on ROM, so version incompatibilties didn't really exist like they would with the disk based OS's we use today).
Their where special files placed in each directory (!boot and !run)
!boot was executed when the filemanager loaded the directory and was responsible for replacing the applications default 'dir' icon with one that represented the application function.
!run was executed when the user launched the program by double clicking on the folder.
It was possible to open the directory rather than execute the application, IIRC a shift key was used in conjunction with a mouse click.
Disclaimer: It's about 15 years since I used the above system, so details may be inaccurate.
D'oh! I've confused the actions of this virus with the worm that affects the ISS Black Ice Firewall this virus. Please ignore my last sentence.
I agree entirely with what you are saying, as I get paid to do exactly what you describe at another ComapnyX, but I'd sooner trust a hotfix from Microsoft (or other vendor), than trust the code from any virus coder.
In this particular case, I believe the hotfix is not a recent one, but is a tried and tested patch.
I suspect that anyone who gets hit by this virus has almost certainly already got a multitude of viruses on their computer already. The fact that this virus will leave the machine in an unbootable state can only be a good thing for other internet users.
A nice piece of scaremongering - I did wonder if today was 1st April when I read this. If the person who submitted this /. story had actually read the article he submitted he wouldn't need to ask how users can protect themselves against this virus. The article clearly states that anyone who keeps their system up-to-date with critical hotfixes will not be troubled by this virus.
Why is there no 'I'm feeling Horny' button.