...You can walk in to any Staples or Best Buy and pick up any piece of software or any printer, digital camera, mp3 player etc. bring it home, plug it in, insert the cd-rom and presto! it just works...
Well, almost. Just the other day I was working on an XP machine where the video just wouldn't work right (the customer bought the card at best buy). Finally I check the web and lo and behold, it isn't listed as compatible according to the M$ website. No wonder it didn't work (and yes, I did try to make it work).
I will admit that hardware support in Windows is far better than Linux, but even Windows isn't perfect. And most of the Linux support problems are due to the manufacturers either not releasing Linux drivers or specs so someone can write the driver.
...There are hidden costs to using Windows, such as MS licensing, the MS tax etc...
And let's not forget vendor lock in. What's the price tag on that??? And the BSA audit raids. While home users have little to worry about, businesses have much to be concerned about.
Windows compatibility...Why the hell else would I use Samba?
I can think of one good reason: laziness (Ok, the good part is questionable). I'm familiar with Samba from having to configure it from work. I need to share directories my home network. Samba, for me, is quick and convienent. Also, I trust it a lot more than NFS.
...However bottom line is that Windows lets me get work done that would be far harder to do on the other platforms...
(Note: I am listing only MY favorite apps. There are others. I'm sure some replies will include them.) Web surfing on Linux (Konqueror, Mozilla) - no problem. Email on Linux (Mozilla, Kmail) - no problem. Writing on Linux (OpenOffice, Lyx) - no problem. Spreadsheets on Linux (OpenOffice) - no problem. Photo editing on Linux (Gimp) - no problem. Solitare (Pysol) - no problem:^). I use spreadsheets for my financials, so I can't comment on Quicken vs. GnuCash. I can't speak for you, but I can be very productive on a Linux system.
Someone wiser than me once said there are two ways to do anything: The easy way and right way.
...Is there some way to define a spam-blocking tool such that explaining how to beat it would be, say, a violation of the DMCA?
I'm sure there is, but why bother? Spammers don't care about the law. Creating viruses to make open relays pretty much says it all. Then add in DDOS's, false advertising, illegal products, etc., and I think you get the idea. Spammers don't care about the law, except when it benefits them.
...What I want to know is, why aren't the ISPs doing something about this now? They're the ones with the bandwidth costs, aren't they??
Simple, money. Ever heard of pink contracts? Basically, for something on the order of 2x normal fees (perhaps more), the spammers gets to ignore the TOS. In short, the spammers bribe the ISPs to look the other way. For some ISPs, it is simply more cost effective to look the other way.
In addition, those within the ISP who do want to drop the spammers are often not liked. The salesman who brings in a "new" customer at more than the going rate looks good. The admin that kills that spammer's account is getting rid of a "valuable" paying customer.
And that leds back to a point the article made: Spamming is done because it is profitable. I still favor email filtering upstream (at the ISP level) as the best (long sigh) solution. Give customers notice that the filtering is occuring, and give them the option to opt-out. Those stupid enough to buy from spammers will (a) probably ignore the notice that there is filtering in place, and (b) not be able to figure out how to opt-out.
This will reduce the number of ads seen by the stupid user, who therefore won't send money to the spammer. Spammer's profits go down, and if the go down far enough, spammer goes out of business.
...Maybe consumers or Microsoft will actually start doing something if their computers get destroyed every damned week.
Yeah, but probably the wrong things. Think about how "security" increased after 9/11 in the US. Lots of new hassles, civil rights trashed, privacy eroded even more, but very little true security. I dread the day virus writers get really destructive. I'm sure M$ would use such an attack to come up with even more "not interoperable" techniques. But now they can do it openly in the name of security. Security info would be censored even more than now, researchers jailed, etc.
...ISPs *maybe* should offer [spam filtering] as an option, but shouldn't filter by default...
Now there I disagree. It think it should be on by default, but with an easy way to turn it off, and the customer should be informed. Why? Simple, spammers spam because it is profitable. It is profitable because a small fraction of a percentage of lusers are stupid enough to send money for whatever product is being pitched. Those that are stupid enough to buy said products will probably not be able to figure out how to turn the spam filtering off, and will ignore the information that there is filtering in the first place. If they don't get the ad, they don't buy, and spamming becomes less profitable. Drop the profits enough and the spammers go out of business.
Of course, the spammers will try to fight back, but that increases their costs (profits down again). More bandwidth to send more spam to get the same number of responses, more money for the pipe, etc. It is only a matter of time before these more aggressive efforts piss off someone (or company) with the means to really go after them. This too is bad for the spammers.
I don't work for an ISP, but will help almost anyone setup spam filters for free (or low cost) (Mozilla mail is great for that). The fewer spams that get seen, the better. I encourage other techs to do the same.
...Forgot, one can not criticize open source on the same standards we hold "M$" to...
Except you forgot two big differences. One, Openssh is free (legally). M$ charges (or tries to) for every copy. With some of M$ site licenses, you even have to pay for copies you aren't using and couldn't use. Second, this problem is only exploitable in the very newest version, and then only if you deliberately turn off some options. By default, you're pretty safe.
The standards are different because one is apples and the other is oranges.
Re:What you don't look at the page first?
on
Knoppix 3.3 Is Out
·
· Score: 2, Informative
amazingly enough They have a torrent link on their download page
Looks like they need it. I'm using that bit torrent link right now and my upload speed is about 3x that of my download speed. I hate to think of the pounding the mirrors are taking.
I'd mod up you up as funny if I had the points. But sadly, what you put isn't so far from the truth. I've personally seen several XP systems (full, not upgrade) get hosed just by installing SP1. That God for Knoppix so I can get at the user's data.
It's at the point where I won't install SP1. I don't want to take responsibility for it. And yes, I know that leaves vulnerabilites open, but at least *I* didn't hose the computer.
Actually, most viruses today seem to exploit the stupidity and/or laziness of the user, i.e. Hmmm, strange attachment. I'll just click on it to see what happens.
Norton Ghost is not Free Software. Are there not any OSS alternatives to Ghost??
Well, there is partimage. However, I still find I prefer a tar gz ball. This way different partition sizes don't matter as they do with ghost and partimage. More work on the setup though. BTW, ghost has the same NTFS problems partimage does. Knoppix includes partimage.
..A zero-day exploit is one that hasn't been reported to the vendor or was reported the same day. This gives sysadmins practically no time to respond to the threat...
While that is true, I guess this makes all MS (tm) viruses zero-day exploits. The antivirus companies can't update their signatures until they have a sample, and by then its usually in the wild. Since most people who do update only do it every few days, there is a large window of vulnerablility. I've seen a client infected in the afternoon by a virus first discovered in that morning. An no source code access is required.
And yes, I know virus scanners are supposed to have heuristics (sp?) to take care of this sort of thing, but IMHO/experience they don't work very well.
... People might switch to OpenOffice, KOffice, etc., if it didn't take them 10 seconds to start up,...
I think the reason more people don't switch is two-fold. Application shock and old documents. First, while very close, OO is not exactly the same layout (and functionality!) as MS Office. I've seen people freaked out by the order of two buttons (next to each other!) being reversed. It's just too much change for some people to accept.
But the second reason is more important. People don't want to lose all their existing work. I have a friend who has had OO on his system for quite some time, but still used word. His templates didn't work quite right until I upgraded him to OO 1.031 (now the screen layout still looks wrong, but they print fine). So to help him (and he has influence with many other users, so I'm also helping to move others), I re-made all his "templates" in OO, improving them along the way, including turning them into true templates. Now he doesn't use word anymore.
While it's true all the improvements I made could have also been made in MS Office, why bother helping a MS document look better and do more. As for me, I learned some things about how to use OO better in the process.
...Word's awful feature of formatting pages slightly differently as a function of what printer is currently active. A few years ago this caused us to postpone a telephone conference because everyone's page numbers were different; we faxed a hard copy to everyone to correct the problem...
Sending it as a pdf (or even html, but pdf would be a safer choice) would have solved this problem. Or for the PHB's, send it as both. Of course, I will skip the lecture on the evils of MS office file formats.
...Unless the rights to print such a document are still allowed, it would mean that corporations can get away with hundreds upon hundreds of scams, illegal activites and everything else that our nation's current corporate climate has bred...
Hmmm...Scams and illegal activities. Now why, oh why, does the name Microsoft spring to mind? I wonder if the various MS documents leaked over the years might have something to do with this???
...Mozilla/Firebird/etc (and Opera) can be easily modified to not send [a referrer header]...
For Mozilla/Firebird/etc, just install the Prefbar addin. It can be customized to include a send referrer button. Personally, I like the kill flash button the best. Makes those dancing flash ads quiet, while still allowing me to use flash.
...The tags will be read by your "Rosie" model robot, that way she will know what load get what clothes.
And for all of you kids out there, get your mind out of the gutter, Rosie the robot is from the Jetsons...
Yes, keep your minds out of the gutter. They keep block the view of my periscope.
...I've heard of people that have gone into a Fry's and refused who they called "the door nazi" to check their stuff...
I've found if you ignore them and just keep walking, they won't bother you. I haven't met one yet that will risk physical confrontation for the wages they are paid. (Obviously, if the anti-theft devices go off, then they do have a reason to bother you.) On the off chance I do meet one such person, well, a good lawyer will have field day with them, and I'll try to get criminal charges pressed.
Of course, in my case, it probably helps I weightlift regularly (used to compete and took home medals), and therefore am not a small person.:)
...nobody with a Mac or a Linux PC has had to lose a moment of sleep over these outbreaks...Except the Mac and Linux users in charge of those systems...
And the Linux users who had to respond to almost continuous "my email's not working" calls because the mail server (at the ISP) was getting hammered (effectively a DDOS attack) by all the probes and spam from the viruses.
I've always wondered if this [burning at 1x speed results in better CD's] is actually true or not.. I have yet to see any actual evidence to back up this claim...
Well, head on over to cdfreaks.com
website and take a look at the results of some tests. For the lazy among us, burning at 4x resulted in more C1 errors in every test posted (on page 1, page 2 timed out) than burning at a higher speed (usually 40x, but one test was at 52x). A comment on page 2 indicated on person did 4 tests, and half said burn at high speeds and half said burn at lower speeds. Overall, the small sample of results indicated that burning at low speed usually makes things worse, not better. Surprising huh?
...If you're going to play, for example, 100 hands of blackjack, it doesn't improve your odds one damn bit to spread those 100 hands over several days or weeks rather than play them at the same sitting...
In theory, perhaps, but not in practice. Winning at blackjack really requires playing like a robot. You must play perfect and that requires lots of concentration, while looking like any normal gambler, and putting up with all the distrations. It's hard, and not many people can keep that up for long. Once your play starts to slip, counting won't help you.
Second, sometimes you get a deck that favors the dealer (not by any cheating, just random chance; the next shuffle may change that). The rule of thumb is 3 loses in a row is time to get up and out of there for a while. This is more a mind game than anything else.
What, you're scared of 220 Volts ? When we were growing up, we walked 200 miles through six feet of snow, wearing no shoes, and we repaired 2000 volt circuits with our bare hands.:-)
You call that tough. When I was a kid, we didn't even have hands.
...Is this really a wise move for Microsoft, resting on their laurels?
I don't see it so much as resting as a move to extract more cash from people. Remember the replacement is Outlook and that is part of M$ Office. M$ Office is not free. And since you have already bought an office suite, why chose OpenOffice, Abiword, etc.??
Conspiracy theorists could well see this as an attempt to lock people out of other office suites, and maintain M$ lockin. And they may be right. But the peasants are restless, and while some will go down the M$ road, more than a few might chose other paths.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, almost. Just the other day I was working on an XP machine where the video just wouldn't work right (the customer bought the card at best buy). Finally I check the web and lo and behold, it isn't listed as compatible according to the M$ website. No wonder it didn't work (and yes, I did try to make it work).
I will admit that hardware support in Windows is far better than Linux, but even Windows isn't perfect. And most of the Linux support problems are due to the manufacturers either not releasing Linux drivers or specs so someone can write the driver.
And let's not forget vendor lock in. What's the price tag on that??? And the BSA audit raids. While home users have little to worry about, businesses have much to be concerned about.
Windows compatibility...Why the hell else would I use Samba?
I can think of one good reason: laziness (Ok, the good part is questionable). I'm familiar with Samba from having to configure it from work. I need to share directories my home network. Samba, for me, is quick and convienent. Also, I trust it a lot more than NFS.
(Note: I am listing only MY favorite apps. There are others. I'm sure some replies will include them.) Web surfing on Linux (Konqueror, Mozilla) - no problem. Email on Linux (Mozilla, Kmail) - no problem. Writing on Linux (OpenOffice, Lyx) - no problem. Spreadsheets on Linux (OpenOffice) - no problem. Photo editing on Linux (Gimp) - no problem. Solitare (Pysol) - no problem :^). I use spreadsheets for my financials, so I can't comment on Quicken vs. GnuCash. I can't speak for you, but I can be very productive on a Linux system.
Someone wiser than me once said there are two ways to do anything: The easy way and right way.
I'm sure there is, but why bother? Spammers don't care about the law. Creating viruses to make open relays pretty much says it all. Then add in DDOS's, false advertising, illegal products, etc., and I think you get the idea. Spammers don't care about the law, except when it benefits them.
Actually, spammers and those stupid enough to send them money are the problem. Without people responding to spam, spammers would go out of business.
Simple, money. Ever heard of pink contracts? Basically, for something on the order of 2x normal fees (perhaps more), the spammers gets to ignore the TOS. In short, the spammers bribe the ISPs to look the other way. For some ISPs, it is simply more cost effective to look the other way.
In addition, those within the ISP who do want to drop the spammers are often not liked. The salesman who brings in a "new" customer at more than the going rate looks good. The admin that kills that spammer's account is getting rid of a "valuable" paying customer.
And that leds back to a point the article made: Spamming is done because it is profitable. I still favor email filtering upstream (at the ISP level) as the best (long sigh) solution. Give customers notice that the filtering is occuring, and give them the option to opt-out. Those stupid enough to buy from spammers will (a) probably ignore the notice that there is filtering in place, and (b) not be able to figure out how to opt-out.
This will reduce the number of ads seen by the stupid user, who therefore won't send money to the spammer. Spammer's profits go down, and if the go down far enough, spammer goes out of business.
Yeah, but probably the wrong things. Think about how "security" increased after 9/11 in the US. Lots of new hassles, civil rights trashed, privacy eroded even more, but very little true security. I dread the day virus writers get really destructive. I'm sure M$ would use such an attack to come up with even more "not interoperable" techniques. But now they can do it openly in the name of security. Security info would be censored even more than now, researchers jailed, etc.
Now there I disagree. It think it should be on by default, but with an easy way to turn it off, and the customer should be informed. Why? Simple, spammers spam because it is profitable. It is profitable because a small fraction of a percentage of lusers are stupid enough to send money for whatever product is being pitched. Those that are stupid enough to buy said products will probably not be able to figure out how to turn the spam filtering off, and will ignore the information that there is filtering in the first place. If they don't get the ad, they don't buy, and spamming becomes less profitable. Drop the profits enough and the spammers go out of business.
Of course, the spammers will try to fight back, but that increases their costs (profits down again). More bandwidth to send more spam to get the same number of responses, more money for the pipe, etc. It is only a matter of time before these more aggressive efforts piss off someone (or company) with the means to really go after them. This too is bad for the spammers.
I don't work for an ISP, but will help almost anyone setup spam filters for free (or low cost) (Mozilla mail is great for that). The fewer spams that get seen, the better. I encourage other techs to do the same.
Except you forgot two big differences. One, Openssh is free (legally). M$ charges (or tries to) for every copy. With some of M$ site licenses, you even have to pay for copies you aren't using and couldn't use. Second, this problem is only exploitable in the very newest version, and then only if you deliberately turn off some options. By default, you're pretty safe.
The standards are different because one is apples and the other is oranges.
amazingly enough They have a torrent link on their download page
Looks like they need it. I'm using that bit torrent link right now and my upload speed is about 3x that of my download speed. I hate to think of the pounding the mirrors are taking.
I'd mod up you up as funny if I had the points. But sadly, what you put isn't so far from the truth. I've personally seen several XP systems (full, not upgrade) get hosed just by installing SP1. That God for Knoppix so I can get at the user's data.
It's at the point where I won't install SP1. I don't want to take responsibility for it. And yes, I know that leaves vulnerabilites open, but at least *I* didn't hose the computer.
Actually, most viruses today seem to exploit the stupidity and/or laziness of the user, i.e. Hmmm, strange attachment. I'll just click on it to see what happens.
Norton Ghost is not Free Software. Are there not any OSS alternatives to Ghost??
Well, there is partimage. However, I still find I prefer a tar gz ball. This way different partition sizes don't matter as they do with ghost and partimage. More work on the setup though. BTW, ghost has the same NTFS problems partimage does. Knoppix includes partimage.
While that is true, I guess this makes all MS (tm) viruses zero-day exploits. The antivirus companies can't update their signatures until they have a sample, and by then its usually in the wild. Since most people who do update only do it every few days, there is a large window of vulnerablility. I've seen a client infected in the afternoon by a virus first discovered in that morning. An no source code access is required.
And yes, I know virus scanners are supposed to have heuristics (sp?) to take care of this sort of thing, but IMHO/experience they don't work very well.
I think the reason more people don't switch is two-fold. Application shock and old documents. First, while very close, OO is not exactly the same layout (and functionality!) as MS Office. I've seen people freaked out by the order of two buttons (next to each other!) being reversed. It's just too much change for some people to accept.
But the second reason is more important. People don't want to lose all their existing work. I have a friend who has had OO on his system for quite some time, but still used word. His templates didn't work quite right until I upgraded him to OO 1.031 (now the screen layout still looks wrong, but they print fine). So to help him (and he has influence with many other users, so I'm also helping to move others), I re-made all his "templates" in OO, improving them along the way, including turning them into true templates. Now he doesn't use word anymore.
While it's true all the improvements I made could have also been made in MS Office, why bother helping a MS document look better and do more. As for me, I learned some things about how to use OO better in the process.
Sending it as a pdf (or even html, but pdf would be a safer choice) would have solved this problem. Or for the PHB's, send it as both. Of course, I will skip the lecture on the evils of MS office file formats.
Hmmm...Scams and illegal activities. Now why, oh why, does the name Microsoft spring to mind? I wonder if the various MS documents leaked over the years might have something to do with this???
For Mozilla/Firebird/etc, just install the Prefbar addin. It can be customized to include a send referrer button. Personally, I like the kill flash button the best. Makes those dancing flash ads quiet, while still allowing me to use flash.
Yes, keep your minds out of the gutter. They keep block the view of my periscope.
I've found if you ignore them and just keep walking, they won't bother you. I haven't met one yet that will risk physical confrontation for the wages they are paid. (Obviously, if the anti-theft devices go off, then they do have a reason to bother you.) On the off chance I do meet one such person, well, a good lawyer will have field day with them, and I'll try to get criminal charges pressed.
Of course, in my case, it probably helps I weightlift regularly (used to compete and took home medals), and therefore am not a small person. :)
And the Linux users who had to respond to almost continuous "my email's not working" calls because the mail server (at the ISP) was getting hammered (effectively a DDOS attack) by all the probes and spam from the viruses.
I've always wondered if this [burning at 1x speed results in better CD's] is actually true or not.. I have yet to see any actual evidence to back up this claim...
Well, head on over to cdfreaks.com website and take a look at the results of some tests. For the lazy among us, burning at 4x resulted in more C1 errors in every test posted (on page 1, page 2 timed out) than burning at a higher speed (usually 40x, but one test was at 52x). A comment on page 2 indicated on person did 4 tests, and half said burn at high speeds and half said burn at lower speeds. Overall, the small sample of results indicated that burning at low speed usually makes things worse, not better. Surprising huh?
In theory, perhaps, but not in practice. Winning at blackjack really requires playing like a robot. You must play perfect and that requires lots of concentration, while looking like any normal gambler, and putting up with all the distrations. It's hard, and not many people can keep that up for long. Once your play starts to slip, counting won't help you.
Second, sometimes you get a deck that favors the dealer (not by any cheating, just random chance; the next shuffle may change that). The rule of thumb is 3 loses in a row is time to get up and out of there for a while. This is more a mind game than anything else.
What, you're scared of 220 Volts ? When we were growing up, we walked 200 miles through six feet of snow, wearing no shoes, and we repaired 2000 volt circuits with our bare hands. :-)
You call that tough. When I was a kid, we didn't even have hands.
I don't see it so much as resting as a move to extract more cash from people. Remember the replacement is Outlook and that is part of M$ Office. M$ Office is not free. And since you have already bought an office suite, why chose OpenOffice, Abiword, etc.??
Conspiracy theorists could well see this as an attempt to lock people out of other office suites, and maintain M$ lockin. And they may be right. But the peasants are restless, and while some will go down the M$ road, more than a few might chose other paths.