And one ethical way to justify this resurrection would apply to every man-caused animal extinction. Well, mammoths *may* have been annihilated by humans. See for example.
Users are more willing to upgrade the antivirus than patching (and possibly f*king the OS), cause most have been bited by malware -attributed to the lack of AV. In most ways, patching the OS should make the AV unnecessary. Assuming this, all M$ is doing is a marketing change in the mindset of the users: instead of encouraging to patch (which most users don't do), they now encourage to "upgrade the AV" (that scares most users.)
This way they really do not do anything new, besides some silly reporting screens and possible better patches, and most important, promote a change in the current believe that Windows is stupidly insecure by its own, contrasting Linux/OSX/whatever.
>> Anti-phishing techniques do not make you safe from dns-poisoning, either.
Totally agreed. The point (bad expressed by me) was that writing literally an URL don't make you safe. Besides, *maybe* a strong anti-phising infrastructure can help when you don't have https, if we could have a list of compromised dns servers, or zones, additionally to suspected domains...
>>But that's why you have SSL certificates. Unless one of your CAs has gone bad, nobody will have a certificate for that domain except for the person that owns the domain.
Bad sadly when the user is redirected to http://www.fake-bank.com/ he is "informed" that is currently in a "secured connection". The user was never trained to check for the ridiculously little lock, nor the weird "https" in the address.
>> Then make it easy for them. If you know someone who has trouble with it, set up their browser for them.
Hey, that means setting the browser from time to time to 99% of my friends/colleagues... I think the overall PC-network security design (if exists) is simply too complicated to people that simply does not have the time to understand software and networks, just need to use them. It is like using little TNT explosions for daily transport power, instead of oil ones... with the adequate care, you can handle the TNT, but...
Despite the (European) Ariane, the most tragic NASA's episodes were not directly related to software. Even with the high business software project failure rate, the software in the space ships has proved very reliable.
I think people is biased to feel the software as a intractable mess because of the intractable requirement dynamics in business projects. BTW, never complains that the hardware can be so bad too.
Of course a single URL has not enough information. But (for example) if you're in China and the government poisoned the records of citibank, at least in China it is better the browser to deny access to a fake "citibank". BTW I don't imply that it is easy to implement with the current infrastructure.
>> create a bookmark/favourite after having typed in the address from the printed material from your bank. And only access it via that link.)
Some thoughts:
* Computer-phobics today don't know how to create a bookmark. Nor type a URL. They just type what they assume is some kind of address in a google bar and click the first or second result. * Even typing a correct URL you're not free from dns-poisoning * Sometimes I've tried to explain those issues to a couple of friends (anthropologists for reference) and the most difficult was related to the stupid act of giving your email password to every social network that gives you an invitation. And really they got a bit scared (because in their email accounts most people stores vital information) but in the end the thing is simply too complicated for non-geeks. And it is not their fault, the problem is the design of the security infrastructure (Schneider wrote a lot about that.)
So we have this nasty anti-phishing thing, sadly necessary as antivirus are in Windows.
>I think most people aren't especially bothered by the idea of having automated advertisements sitting next to what they're doing.
Maybe at some places, but the odds are against it. For example, think of the PDF converters that left a watermark and ask you to pay in order to clear it. No serious business will ever deliver a "free software watermarked document" to a client or partner (that's the reason people indeed pays for clearing it.)
Some sectors can accept more advertising, for example, inside a university you may actually look cool/smart if you provide a document with a tag pointing to its "free processing", but of course, that community is not going to make Sun to profit.
The problem is those silly NASA Windows users trying to manage all with their Terminal Server Client. If the Rover had sshd everything would be allright.
These things will be useful only if somebody in the/. staff collects the best of them and put in something like a "Slashdot Knowledge Archive". Otherwise it is totally out of place in a "news for nerds" site.
Suggestion for the next week: stupid tricks in Mysql=Monday, Postgresql=Tue, Oracle=Wed Sqlite=Thu DB2=Fri Sybase=Sat Gdbm=Sun Sql/Server=never.
In reality what it is beautiful is the feeling of not having to write and debug a parser for it in whatever language...
It also feels beautiful when you see the "Windows Admin" (if that thing can exist) looking for a Visual Basic programmer to resolve that obvious "programming task".
He's not criticizing, just accounting a real experience. Adding that people can live with HIV for several (many?) years, so there is a very good chance that in the near future any patient can get a treatment or cure less invasive and with a better success probability than the article's case. And agreed, this is time to congratulate the physicians for this cure.
From a security point of view, "server" should have the bare less services enough to do its task (more applications are more things to worry and patch, albeit performance problems caused by runaway irrelevant processes.) The Desktop on contrary tries to be the easier for the user, generally avoiding the installation of components (that's one reason you have an office suite, even if the only thing you need is a spreadsheet.)
But agreed, there is no inherent (kernel) difference in performance/scalability; that always sounds more like a commercial trick of the vendors to get more money from you... think in the "non-server" operating systems from Microsoft that are artificially unable to run SQL/Server.
Modded Flamebait for suggesting one editor is (maybe) more used than the other... I didn't suspect those old religious sentiments are so alive hitherto.
>> Since the Vi version of this question was both interesting and popular, let's hear from the other end of the spectrum
A bit suspicious, but is there any reason the VIM story ran first than the Emacs one? (and the Emacs' smells like a sort of concession)... Taco's preferences lurking? It would be interesting to see if the./ crowd has a marked statistical preference for one of the editors independently of the (religious) reasons; I'd speculate that Vim is a lot more used because its ubiquity in almost every Linux fresh installation.
Well, since a long time I'm used to the Vim syntax highligthing/identation when I write some piece of C (of course in Java the IDE is in another league.) I found annoying when Vim is not configured with that support.
The parent answer is valid: sometimes people asks for improving FOO just because they don't know that BAR exists (same used to happen on the Windows issue.)
Slashdot Mirror
And one ethical way to justify this resurrection would apply to every man-caused animal extinction. Well, mammoths *may* have been annihilated by humans.
See for example.
Users are more willing to upgrade the antivirus than patching (and possibly f*king the OS), cause most have been bited by malware -attributed to the lack of AV. In most ways, patching the OS should make the AV unnecessary. Assuming this, all M$ is doing is a marketing change in the mindset of the users: instead of encouraging to patch (which most users don't do), they now encourage to "upgrade the AV" (that scares most users.)
This way they really do not do anything new, besides some silly reporting screens and possible better patches, and most important, promote a change in the current believe that Windows is stupidly insecure by its own, contrasting Linux/OSX/whatever.
Like CentOS is already doing.
>> Anti-phishing techniques do not make you safe from dns-poisoning, either.
Totally agreed. The point (bad expressed by me) was that writing literally an URL don't make you safe. Besides, *maybe* a strong anti-phising infrastructure can help when you don't have https, if we could have a list of compromised dns servers, or zones, additionally to suspected domains...
>>But that's why you have SSL certificates. Unless one of your CAs has gone bad, nobody will have a certificate for that domain except for the person that owns the domain.
Bad sadly when the user is redirected to http://www.fake-bank.com/ he is "informed" that is currently in a "secured connection". The user was never trained to check for the ridiculously little lock, nor the weird "https" in the address.
>> Then make it easy for them. If you know someone who has trouble with it, set up their browser for them.
Hey, that means setting the browser from time to time to 99% of my friends/colleagues... I think the overall PC-network security design (if exists) is simply too complicated to people that simply does not have the time to understand software and networks, just need to use them. It is like using little TNT explosions for daily transport power, instead of oil ones... with the adequate care, you can handle the TNT, but...
Despite the (European) Ariane, the most tragic NASA's episodes were not directly related to software. Even with the high business software project failure rate, the software in the space ships has proved very reliable.
I think people is biased to feel the software as a intractable mess because of the intractable requirement dynamics in business projects. BTW, never complains that the hardware can be so bad too.
Of course a single URL has not enough information. But (for example) if you're in China and the government poisoned the records of citibank, at least in China it is better the browser to deny access to a fake "citibank". BTW I don't imply that it is easy to implement with the current infrastructure.
Maybe blocking the url at start, so the browser never asks anything to the dns server.
>> create a bookmark/favourite after having typed in the address from the printed material from your bank. And only access it via that link.)
Some thoughts:
* Computer-phobics today don't know how to create a bookmark. Nor type a URL. They just type what they assume is some kind of address in a google bar and click the first or second result.
* Even typing a correct URL you're not free from dns-poisoning
* Sometimes I've tried to explain those issues to a couple of friends (anthropologists for reference) and the most difficult was related to the stupid act of giving your email password to every social network that gives you an invitation. And really they got a bit scared (because in their email accounts most people stores vital information) but in the end the thing is simply too complicated for non-geeks. And it is not their fault, the problem is the design of the security infrastructure (Schneider wrote a lot about that.)
So we have this nasty anti-phishing thing, sadly necessary as antivirus are in Windows.
>I think most people aren't especially bothered by the idea of having automated advertisements sitting next to what they're doing.
Maybe at some places, but the odds are against it. For example, think of the PDF converters that left a watermark and ask you to pay in order to clear it. No serious business will ever deliver a "free software watermarked document" to a client or partner (that's the reason people indeed pays for clearing it.)
Some sectors can accept more advertising, for example, inside a university you may actually look cool/smart if you provide a document with a tag pointing to its "free processing", but of course, that community is not going to make Sun to profit.
>>They are just a bit similar in that one person owns something that is dead, and wants his money back.
I just have my new laptop, Vista is now dead. I want my money back. Where is the joke?
The problem is those silly NASA Windows users trying to manage all with their Terminal Server Client. If the Rover had sshd everything would be allright.
These things will be useful only if somebody in the /. staff collects the best of them and put in something like a "Slashdot Knowledge Archive". Otherwise it is totally out of place in a "news for nerds" site.
Suggestion for the next week: stupid tricks in Mysql=Monday, Postgresql=Tue, Oracle=Wed Sqlite=Thu DB2=Fri Sybase=Sat Gdbm=Sun Sql/Server=never.
> Is Windows 7 Faster Or Just Smarter?
This is ./ ... the story title is inappropriate for this site. It's like telling "Linux 2.8 slower or just dumber?"
In reality what it is beautiful is the feeling of not having to write and debug a parser for it in whatever language...
It also feels beautiful when you see the "Windows Admin" (if that thing can exist) looking for a Visual Basic programmer to resolve that obvious "programming task".
Related story: Turning servers down and hibernating laptops, increases energy bills...
> Maybe that's just from millions of coffee makers being pressed into extra duty.
Maybe that's just from millions of hard disks being pressed into extra startups.
He's not criticizing, just accounting a real experience. Adding that people can live with HIV for several (many?) years, so there is a very good chance that in the near future any patient can get a treatment or cure less invasive and with a better success probability than the article's case. And agreed, this is time to congratulate the physicians for this cure.
From a security point of view, "server" should have the bare less services enough to do its task (more applications are more things to worry and patch, albeit performance problems caused by runaway irrelevant processes.) The Desktop on contrary tries to be the easier for the user, generally avoiding the installation of components (that's one reason you have an office suite, even if the only thing you need is a spreadsheet.)
But agreed, there is no inherent (kernel) difference in performance/scalability; that always sounds more like a commercial trick of the vendors to get more money from you... think in the "non-server" operating systems from Microsoft that are artificially unable to run SQL/Server.
Modded Flamebait for suggesting one editor is (maybe) more used than the other... I didn't suspect those old religious sentiments are so alive hitherto.
So by the next week we may the OpenOffice tricks?
Maybe all it needs is another category for modding: "LAWYER" and some configuration option in order to "do not show lawyers".
From the resume:
>> Since the Vi version of this question was both interesting and popular, let's hear from the other end of the spectrum
A bit suspicious, but is there any reason the VIM story ran first than the Emacs one? (and the Emacs' smells like a sort of concession) ... Taco's preferences lurking? It would be interesting to see if the ./ crowd has a marked statistical preference for one of the editors independently of the (religious) reasons; I'd speculate that Vim is a lot more used because its ubiquity in almost every Linux fresh installation.
Well, since a long time I'm used to the Vim syntax highligthing/identation when I write some piece of C (of course in Java the IDE is in another league.) I found annoying when Vim is not configured with that support.
>> So there could be some value in producing the same results on a computer, which doesn't make the same kind of mistakes a human does.
Except if it has one of the first Pentium's...
Seriously, even if the "math prover" is right, who proves the "math prover"?
Yeah, he may never heard of hard drives used that way... several years ago that was considered stupid, today it is a relatively new scenario.
The parent answer is valid: sometimes people asks for improving FOO just because they don't know that BAR exists (same used to happen on the Windows issue.)