Congrats, a co-worker of mine recently had to re-install XP on his home system when his harddrive died. It was barely finished booting when he started having problems, scanning the system turned up a virus or 2 already.
Myself and others strongly recommended he drop a router (NAT) between the computer and his internet connection for his next install. (or, disconnect it and make sure everything is up to date before it gets connected... but I strongly recommended the router).
Due to the nature of XML, a parser which will accept malformed XML is a potential nightmare.
Badly formed HTML isn't a big deal, but badly formed XML is potentially hazardous to data integrity.
As for Apples situation with Photocasting and RSS, this whole situation is blown entirely out of proportion.
I went looking into namespace issues relating to XML last week for a project I'm working on. I wanted to verify that my purpose for the namespace wasn't in violation of any intents; what I found was rather interesting and highlights the reason why Apple made the mistake they did.
Some people think a tag should inherit the name space of it's parent, while others disagree; there are even flags for identifying the behavior in some XML parsers so they can handle it either way. (See: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/08/22/deviant.html) Apple's mistake in this regard is rather minor, as it is almost impossible to incorrectly parse the XML and do anything with it; inspite of it being bad form. (It IS legal syntax in XML, it is NOT legal syntax in RSS).
As for their mishandling of namespace it looks like it was a quick and dirty hack for testing purposes, and somebody rushed it out the door. The date field which is 'incorrectly' formatted is the date field that should be identified as being in Apples specified namespace. Which means it's format is NOT incorrect; it can be anything Apple says it is, only it's namespace is incorrect.
RSS is a convoluted historical artifact, while version 2 looks quite simple, the overall history of RSS is disturbing in that something so poorly conceived should function at all. There are many quirks and special handling of the older variants and, contrary to the opinion of some, there is only self appointed authoritative references for any of it.
I dislike virtually every wine I have ever tasted. (just to get my bias out of the way).
My parents recently took a wine appreciation course. When describing a win there was little push for the descriptions to be based on anything particular. The fact is, any wine can taste quite different to different people.
It was quite possible by the end of the course for most of the people to identify which family of wines they appreciated the most. My mother has one particular family of wines she likes, while my father is a little more broadminded. They both commented that the price of the wine had little (no) barring on their opinion and I am convinced that most of the issue of expensive wines is nothing more than elitism. (That said, few of the cheap wines age well; and I could see how that should effect the price).
Me, I'll stick to Smirnoff Ice (defnitly not a wine:) ; I dislike the taste of Alcohol and it is one of the only things I've tried where the taste of alcohol is subtle enough it doesn't bother me. I'm sure there are a few other drinks where the taste would be acceptable, but sooner or later you have to give up trying and pick one.
ADSL isn't 'always on' for everyone. A lot of people have to run PPPOE clients, and since they don't use routers they are effectively disconnected when they aren't running it.
Not that I think this is really any form of security. It isn't. It is a nuisance and a great way to slow a computer down as most of the pppoe clients are poorly written.
Apple made development machines available months ago. (Sometime around June last year).
Now, the machines aren't identical to the new iMacs, but they were Intel based machines and could be used for compiling/testing purposes without difficulty. Apple made them available for $999/US. (These machines were on-loan, not purchased for that price.) As of Jan 10th they have offered a Trade-in on them as well, any one of the Developer kit machines can be traded for an iMac Core Duo (17"). (Which will be considered owned by the end user).
While I would agree that calling software which is merely recompiled as 'designed for' is an exaggeration, there has been plenty of opportunity for companies to tailor the Universal Binaries.
No, while there is reason to think that the new Apple hardware can't run any available OS except OS X for now, there is no reason to believe that will continue for very long.
Most think it is an issue with the new firmware design and that a boot loader or sorts will be figured out and work, at-least for Linux. (Microsoft likely won't care enough).
OS X on the other hand won't run without the Apple hardware. While someone may figure out a way around that, I suspect it will be an ongoing battle with any updates from Apple possibly breaking the functionality.
As for purchasing Apple or PC Commodity... people will buy what they buy based on the OS and want their friends suggest, I doubt that is going to change significantly.
I have repeatedly had to explain to the Network administrators that I have to be able to send email from one of 2 Unix boxes.
Everytime they apply a patch to Exchange they block all forms of Relaying. Which means no mail from any machine in the network can send outbound email (except Outlook of course), through the exchange server or not.
At the end of the day I don't care, but they wasted the week of development done to produce PDF based Invoices for their customers which are sent. And I get the pleasure of explaining there is nothing I can do about the problem. And now those IT functions are not handled in-house, they are handled by the parent company and take longer to resolve than previously.
Dual booting isn't a satisfactory procedure for that, at-least it wasn't in the past when I worked with Windows and OS/2 environments. The boot times for the OS, combined with the need to carefully map documents, data and other information so it can be accessible in both environments complicates things. (even if they are network shares, the process and procedures are slightly different).
If viable you are better off with using VNC, Citrix or even Remote Desktop setup, which allows you to access a smaller group of machines for testing and evaluation. Both Windows XP and OS X support adaquate methods for remote access.
It won't truly protect against viruses per say; but it will deal with any form of unexpected changes.
I've been using a Mac as my main machine for a couple of years now and I know it isn't 100% secure.
Starting with a new machine with a clean install will help me tailor the process.
At some point in the future I expect Mac OS to be under attack; especially now that they are switching to Intel. (This may cause an increase in the number of users in the demo-graphic most likely to write computer viruses.). [If it doesn't I won't complain.].
How does the average user protect against the unknown?
When I get my new iMac ('free') I will be adding some extra security to the system. But the average user cannot do what I will be doing.
And as for the anti-virus software outthere, except for dealing with Office viruses, and maybe System 6-9 viruses what is it supposed to protect against? It's snake-oil.
How do i know they even have staff on hand to deal with an outbreak where there hasn't been anything of significance in 5 years. (yes, I heard about issues within the last 5 years, they were not particularly significant as they were risks, not outbreaks.
How many people on Slashdot actually run anti-virus software on their Linux boxes? 5%?
Microsoft didn't write the UNDELETE routine included in DOS 5, they licensed it. Microsoft didn't right their Anti-Spyware program, they licensed an engine.
Microsoft doesn't seem to know anything about their own products and they keep licensing technology that they should, theoretically, be the best in the industry to write themselves.
Using Rosetta meany applications compiled for PPC can run.
There is an option to compile for Intel or PPC when developing using X-Code and X-Code uses gcc as a compiler.
Most applications should be fine, more exotic utilities will probably need recompiles, and if they are still being developed it should be a small amount of work for the developer; especially if they arleady make the tool available cross platform.
If the counterfeiting laws regarding regular merchandise are as screwed up as they are for drugs (controlled by the FDA) they could both say Memorex and be purchased from the same supplier and labeled on behalf of Memorex.
Memorex (or any other company) could then claim the packaging is wrong (as it was inteded for a different market) and say it is counterfeit.
Drugs are determined to be counterfeit if the packaging is not the exact same as the packaging registered with the FDA. Even if they are packaged on behalf of the same company, and with the same product. (hence, Canadian drugs are considered counterfeit, the packaging is different, often just enough to make room for a french label.)
The solution is to listen to Satellite radio. (XM Radio specificly) lots of music, no ads.
And with the new units due in the spring, MP3 players and recording of songs from XM Radio... the best of both worlds... except it isn't an iPod and I don't already own one...
Having recently installed the drivers for an ATI card (X700 Pro) I can say they suck. Again.
The only good news is I received a phonecall tonight informing me the problems went away after some unknown program reported it would delete some files.
The unknown program is part of the Catalyst stuff (based on research I've done.).
ATI needs to get their act together on their drivers. They can be exceedling difficult to install, even for experienced users; and their quality is questionable at best.
IBM knows they can produce the same chip for the XBox360 today, as they will next year.
There is no immediate push for the chip to be faster, smaller, lower power consumption, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there will be incremental improvements in the processors used over the lifetime of the XBox 360 production schedule. But it won't be an absolute necessity.
It should be far easier for IBM to plan the production of the chips to coincide with demand for the XBox360.
I bought a Mac for the OS. So I agree with such a statement, but as for the hardware, people want to buy hardware that 'just works'.
I spent several hours today getting a video card working on a Windows XP machine. The entire process was stupid. The error messages were useless (and wrong). The FAQs I read hinted at the issues, but didn't address them. In the end, to get the video drivers to do anything I needed to install new drivers for everything else on the system. (Which, without good cause I am reluctant to do as they could conceivably break something that is working just fine.). [and even this didn't solve the problem till I put the old video card in, cleaned out all the attempted install of drivers, re-installed the new video card and re-ran the entire process.]
The process to get hardware working on a Mac, in my experience, is far easier and less troublesome. It smees to be far better controlled and thought out. Less ad-hoc.
That is something I am entirely willing to pay for. (And also why I don't run Linux, which suffers the same issues...)
I get to spend the day trying to get an ATI video card working in my mothers computer.
My dad calls me and asks if the card would be a good upgrade from the existing card and I suggested he try to see if there was an Nvidia card instead that might be a good deal. There wasn't. So I decide that my bias against ATI is several years old and they have probably fixed their drivers by now. (Which I have been assured by numerous people were all fixed and good since I bought my ATI all In Wonder years ago.).
So I tried installing it the other day and spent god knows how long getting an error message at the end of the install process telling me to install the standard VGA drivers. Of which there does not seem to be any for Windows XP. (No, booting in the VGA mode didn't solve that problem).
Since I had things to do last night for New Years I left before I could figure out the issue but now I have to travel back to my parents place and fix the problem.
As much as hardware for my Mac tends to be more expensive, I'll take the price hit over the GOD DAMN HASSLE of Windows hardware.
I am utterly sick of having to print out pages of information not provided by manufacturers just to install their products on the CURRENT VERSION of a Windows OS.
I've been using a Logitech keyboard with my mac for over a year. The only thing I had to do was re-map the MEDIA key to act as an Eject. And even that wasn't necessary, it was just a convenience. Logitech even marks the keys with Apple symbols.
Mice can be a bit of an issue, but both my Logitech and Microsoft mice work fine on my Mac.
I'd call you a troll, but I think you were being honest.
Compressing files with a good compression program does not increase the chance of it being corrupted.
And, the majority of files people send to each other, etc, aren't simply ascii files. (even if yours are).
The other advantage of using a compression program is the majority of them create archives and allow you to consolidate all the related files.
A good archive/compression program will add a couple of percent of reduntancy data which can substantially increase the data integrity. Above and beyond that which you have by simply story an ascii file uncompressed.
My concern with all the 'new' compression programs is that they, unlike Zip, haven't survived the test of time. I've recovered damaged zip archives in the past and they have come through mostly intact. I've used archive/compression like ARJ with options to be able to recover data even if there are multiple bad sectors on a harddrive or floppy disk. How many of the new compression programs have the tools available to adequately recover every possible byte of data?
I don't know why Slashdot crowd is so enamored with MySQL. (I know, lost of people speak up against it too). I know MySQL is 'good enough' for the majority of hobby projects, but I find it particularly interesting how many issues get mentioned with how MySQL allows for invalid data and the fans say it's a good thing.
It isn't.
If you want an SQL engine that allows anything, look at SQLite. The author of SQLite isn't under the illusion it is a full blown RDBMS. And it looks to support all the standard feature, and it's more free than MySQL. (www.sqlite.org).
Makes one wonder about the quality of the rest of the articles on that site.
Re:Target Audience: Your Parents & Relatives
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Congrats, a co-worker of mine recently had to re-install XP on his home system when his harddrive died. It was barely finished booting when he started having problems, scanning the system turned up a virus or 2 already.
Myself and others strongly recommended he drop a router (NAT) between the computer and his internet connection for his next install. (or, disconnect it and make sure everything is up to date before it gets connected... but I strongly recommended the router).
I do, why don't you?
I have a PRO-2050 (TrunkTracker 800Mhz) from Radio Shack, it support the 149.990 frequency they will be broadcasting on. Most scanners probably do.
Due to the nature of XML, a parser which will accept malformed XML is a potential nightmare.
Badly formed HTML isn't a big deal, but badly formed XML is potentially hazardous to data integrity.
As for Apples situation with Photocasting and RSS, this whole situation is blown entirely out of proportion.
I went looking into namespace issues relating to XML last week for a project I'm working on. I wanted to verify that my purpose for the namespace wasn't in violation of any intents; what I found was rather interesting and highlights the reason why Apple made the mistake they did.
Some people think a tag should inherit the name space of it's parent, while others disagree; there are even flags for identifying the behavior in some XML parsers so they can handle it either way. (See: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/08/22/deviant.html)
Apple's mistake in this regard is rather minor, as it is almost impossible to incorrectly parse the XML and do anything with it; inspite of it being bad form. (It IS legal syntax in XML, it is NOT legal syntax in RSS).
As for their mishandling of namespace it looks like it was a quick and dirty hack for testing purposes, and somebody rushed it out the door. The date field which is 'incorrectly' formatted is the date field that should be identified as being in Apples specified namespace. Which means it's format is NOT incorrect; it can be anything Apple says it is, only it's namespace is incorrect.
RSS is a convoluted historical artifact, while version 2 looks quite simple, the overall history of RSS is disturbing in that something so poorly conceived should function at all. There are many quirks and special handling of the older variants and, contrary to the opinion of some, there is only self appointed authoritative references for any of it.
I dislike virtually every wine I have ever tasted. (just to get my bias out of the way).
My parents recently took a wine appreciation course. When describing a win there was little push for the descriptions to be based on anything particular. The fact is, any wine can taste quite different to different people.
It was quite possible by the end of the course for most of the people to identify which family of wines they appreciated the most. My mother has one particular family of wines she likes, while my father is a little more broadminded. They both commented that the price of the wine had little (no) barring on their opinion and I am convinced that most of the issue of expensive wines is nothing more than elitism. (That said, few of the cheap wines age well; and I could see how that should effect the price).
Me, I'll stick to Smirnoff Ice (defnitly not a wine:) ; I dislike the taste of Alcohol and it is one of the only things I've tried where the taste of alcohol is subtle enough it doesn't bother me. I'm sure there are a few other drinks where the taste would be acceptable, but sooner or later you have to give up trying and pick one.
ADSL isn't 'always on' for everyone. A lot of people have to run PPPOE clients, and since they don't use routers they are effectively disconnected when they aren't running it.
Not that I think this is really any form of security. It isn't. It is a nuisance and a great way to slow a computer down as most of the pppoe clients are poorly written.
Apple made development machines available months ago.
(Sometime around June last year).
Now, the machines aren't identical to the new iMacs, but they were Intel based machines and could be used for compiling/testing purposes without difficulty. Apple made them available for $999/US. (These machines were on-loan, not purchased for that price.)
As of Jan 10th they have offered a Trade-in on them as well, any one of the Developer kit machines can be traded for an iMac Core Duo (17"). (Which will be considered owned by the end user).
While I would agree that calling software which is merely recompiled as 'designed for' is an exaggeration, there has been plenty of opportunity for companies to tailor the Universal Binaries.
No, while there is reason to think that the new Apple hardware can't run any available OS except OS X for now, there is no reason to believe that will continue for very long.
Most think it is an issue with the new firmware design and that a boot loader or sorts will be figured out and work, at-least for Linux. (Microsoft likely won't care enough).
OS X on the other hand won't run without the Apple hardware. While someone may figure out a way around that, I suspect it will be an ongoing battle with any updates from Apple possibly breaking the functionality.
As for purchasing Apple or PC Commodity... people will buy what they buy based on the OS and want their friends suggest, I doubt that is going to change significantly.
I have repeatedly had to explain to the Network administrators that I have to be able to send email from one of 2 Unix boxes.
Everytime they apply a patch to Exchange they block all forms of Relaying. Which means no mail from any machine in the network can send outbound email (except Outlook of course), through the exchange server or not.
At the end of the day I don't care, but they wasted the week of development done to produce PDF based Invoices for their customers which are sent. And I get the pleasure of explaining there is nothing I can do about the problem. And now those IT functions are not handled in-house, they are handled by the parent company and take longer to resolve than previously.
Dual booting isn't a satisfactory procedure for that, at-least it wasn't in the past when I worked with Windows and OS/2 environments. The boot times for the OS, combined with the need to carefully map documents, data and other information so it can be accessible in both environments complicates things. (even if they are network shares, the process and procedures are slightly different).
If viable you are better off with using VNC, Citrix or even Remote Desktop setup, which allows you to access a smaller group of machines for testing and evaluation. Both Windows XP and OS X support adaquate methods for remote access.
Setting up something akin to Tripwire on my Mac.
It won't truly protect against viruses per say; but it will deal with any form of unexpected changes.
I've been using a Mac as my main machine for a couple of years now and I know it isn't 100% secure.
Starting with a new machine with a clean install will help me tailor the process.
At some point in the future I expect Mac OS to be under attack; especially now that they are switching to Intel. (This may cause an increase in the number of users in the demo-graphic most likely to write computer viruses.). [If it doesn't I won't complain.].
How does the average user protect against the unknown?
When I get my new iMac ('free') I will be adding some extra security to the system. But the average user cannot do what I will be doing.
And as for the anti-virus software outthere, except for dealing with Office viruses, and maybe System 6-9 viruses what is it supposed to protect against? It's snake-oil.
How do i know they even have staff on hand to deal with an outbreak where there hasn't been anything of significance in 5 years. (yes, I heard about issues within the last 5 years, they were not particularly significant as they were risks, not outbreaks.
How many people on Slashdot actually run anti-virus software on their Linux boxes? 5%?
Does Microsoft lack mastery in their own code?
Microsoft didn't write the UNDELETE routine included in DOS 5, they licensed it.
Microsoft didn't right their Anti-Spyware program, they licensed an engine.
Microsoft doesn't seem to know anything about their own products and they keep licensing technology that they should, theoretically, be the best in the industry to write themselves.
But they keep licensing it from others.
Using Rosetta meany applications compiled for PPC can run.
There is an option to compile for Intel or PPC when developing using X-Code and X-Code uses gcc as a compiler.
Most applications should be fine, more exotic utilities will probably need recompiles, and if they are still being developed it should be a small amount of work for the developer; especially if they arleady make the tool available cross platform.
Actually, recent firmware changed that on some models.
Mine (3rd Gen) now supports a Save Playlist, if you do that you can then start building a new playlist.
Worse.
If the counterfeiting laws regarding regular merchandise are as screwed up as they are for drugs (controlled by the FDA) they could both say Memorex and be purchased from the same supplier and labeled on behalf of Memorex.
Memorex (or any other company) could then claim the packaging is wrong (as it was inteded for a different market) and say it is counterfeit.
Drugs are determined to be counterfeit if the packaging is not the exact same as the packaging registered with the FDA. Even if they are packaged on behalf of the same company, and with the same product. (hence, Canadian drugs are considered counterfeit, the packaging is different, often just enough to make room for a french label.)
Bah.
The solution is to listen to Satellite radio. (XM Radio specificly) lots of music, no ads.
And with the new units due in the spring, MP3 players and recording of songs from XM Radio... the best of both worlds... except it isn't an iPod and I don't already own one...
Having recently installed the drivers for an ATI card (X700 Pro) I can say they suck. Again.
The only good news is I received a phonecall tonight informing me the problems went away after some unknown program reported it would delete some files.
The unknown program is part of the Catalyst stuff (based on research I've done.).
ATI needs to get their act together on their drivers. They can be exceedling difficult to install, even for experienced users; and their quality is questionable at best.
IBM knows they can produce the same chip for the XBox360 today, as they will next year.
There is no immediate push for the chip to be faster, smaller, lower power consumption, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there will be incremental improvements in the processors used over the lifetime of the XBox 360 production schedule. But it won't be an absolute necessity.
It should be far easier for IBM to plan the production of the chips to coincide with demand for the XBox360.
You confuse the definition of hardware.
I bought a Mac for the OS. So I agree with such a statement, but as for the hardware, people want to buy hardware that 'just works'.
I spent several hours today getting a video card working on a Windows XP machine. The entire process was stupid. The error messages were useless (and wrong). The FAQs I read hinted at the issues, but didn't address them. In the end, to get the video drivers to do anything I needed to install new drivers for everything else on the system. (Which, without good cause I am reluctant to do as they could conceivably break something that is working just fine.). [and even this didn't solve the problem till I put the old video card in, cleaned out all the attempted install of drivers, re-installed the new video card and re-ran the entire process.]
The process to get hardware working on a Mac, in my experience, is far easier and less troublesome. It smees to be far better controlled and thought out. Less ad-hoc.
That is something I am entirely willing to pay for. (And also why I don't run Linux, which suffers the same issues...)
I get to spend the day trying to get an ATI video card working in my mothers computer.
My dad calls me and asks if the card would be a good upgrade from the existing card and I suggested he try to see if there was an Nvidia card instead that might be a good deal. There wasn't. So I decide that my bias against ATI is several years old and they have probably fixed their drivers by now. (Which I have been assured by numerous people were all fixed and good since I bought my ATI all In Wonder years ago.).
So I tried installing it the other day and spent god knows how long getting an error message at the end of the install process telling me to install the standard VGA drivers. Of which there does not seem to be any for Windows XP. (No, booting in the VGA mode didn't solve that problem).
Since I had things to do last night for New Years I left before I could figure out the issue but now I have to travel back to my parents place and fix the problem.
As much as hardware for my Mac tends to be more expensive, I'll take the price hit over the GOD DAMN HASSLE of Windows hardware.
I am utterly sick of having to print out pages of information not provided by manufacturers just to install their products on the CURRENT VERSION of a Windows OS.
And ATI is back on my forbidden hardware list.
Huh?
I've been using a Logitech keyboard with my mac for over a year.
The only thing I had to do was re-map the MEDIA key to act as an Eject. And even that wasn't necessary, it was just a convenience. Logitech even marks the keys with Apple symbols.
Mice can be a bit of an issue, but both my Logitech and Microsoft mice work fine on my Mac.
His criticism applies to the StarTac series from Motorola.
The StarTac I had did not have a visible display when closed so you had to open it to see who was calling.
You could how-ever use the buttons on the side to toss the call.
I'd call you a troll, but I think you were being honest.
Compressing files with a good compression program does not increase the chance of it being corrupted.
And, the majority of files people send to each other, etc, aren't simply ascii files. (even if yours are).
The other advantage of using a compression program is the majority of them create archives and allow you to consolidate all the related files.
A good archive/compression program will add a couple of percent of reduntancy data which can substantially increase the data integrity. Above and beyond that which you have by simply story an ascii file uncompressed.
My concern with all the 'new' compression programs is that they, unlike Zip, haven't survived the test of time. I've recovered damaged zip archives in the past and they have come through mostly intact. I've used archive/compression like ARJ with options to be able to recover data even if there are multiple bad sectors on a harddrive or floppy disk. How many of the new compression programs have the tools available to adequately recover every possible byte of data?
You're right, the article was awful.
I don't know why Slashdot crowd is so enamored with MySQL. (I know, lost of people speak up against it too). I know MySQL is 'good enough' for the majority of hobby projects, but I find it particularly interesting how many issues get mentioned with how MySQL allows for invalid data and the fans say it's a good thing.
It isn't.
If you want an SQL engine that allows anything, look at SQLite. The author of SQLite isn't under the illusion it is a full blown RDBMS. And it looks to support all the standard feature, and it's more free than MySQL. (www.sqlite.org).
Makes one wonder about the quality of the rest of the articles on that site.
Twice daily?
I hit refresh a heck of a lot more than that...
now where's that book on 12-step programs.