.NET languages all target the same runtime, they are just different kinds of syntactic sugar.
VB.NET is the VB syntax we know and hate, with lot's of the worst parts fixed:
Assignment is now simply identifier = expr. No more Set for objects or other such nonsense.
All calls to functions and subs (sorry, procedures) must include parantheses. Thank God.
Integer is now 32 bit.
Dim i, j, k As Integer makes all of the variables integers instead of i and j as Variants.
The Variant type is a thing of the past.
Et cetera.. Basically all of the things from the 'Thirteen Ways to Loathe VB' link. See Language Changes in Visual Basic at MSDN.
There is a lot of other changes and additions. Frankly, I don't see why anyone would use VB.NET in favor of C#, J# or even Managed C++. It's great for upgrading old VB6 projects to better performing and more stable.NET components though.
As others have said, this is definately a configuration problem. It should never run this slow.
A common setup that causes symptoms like this: If you've disabled Messenger (so it doesn't startup with Windows and is set to not run in the background) but haven't disabled 'Instant Messenging' i Outlook XP, it will be opened and closed every time you click on a new message. Needless to say, this is time consuming and very ineffective. The solution is to go into Tools/Options/Other and uncheck the 'Enable Instant Messenging in Microsoft Outlook' checkbox.
From just above the box office charts in the article:
The Box Office Trek films often escaped the sci-fi niche to become mainstream hits. Worldwide gross in 2002 dollars:
Which part of 'worldwide gross in 2002 dollars' do you interpret as being not adjusted for inflation? In fact, since the numbers actually are inflation adjusted, the numbers do indeed support the notion, that Star Trek still makes Paramount loads of dollars.
Excellent advice. A technical detail that is important to get right though: an extra bit in the key does not double the probable time to break it -- that is only true for symmetric key encryption where keyspace in bits signifies the total number of encryption keys.
In asymmetric systems, where the number of bits typically signifies the size of the prime used or some other type of like property, adding a single bit changes the 'estimated time to break' very little.
PGPckt's PGPdisk does indeed work under Windows XP - albeit with a few quirks. However, since it is based on the PGP v6 codebase, it is unable to read PGPdisks created by PGP v7.
The new PGPdisk in PGP v8 is the only one to function under Windows XP with the ability to read all versions of PGPdisks.
Many telemarketing firms are moving overseas. FTC rulings cannot control what happens in third-world countries like India and Portugal [..] Telemarketers are people too. Although many telemarketers are colored, most of them are just like you and me [..]
While Slashdot has it's shares of trolls in the various technical discussions, this is one of the most appalling comments I've ever seen moderated this high. In the same post, Portugal is called a third-world country (third-world?! while I wouldn't personally consider India a third-world country by normal definitions, I'll concede that some may) and in apparent attempt to defend telemarketers a blatantly racist remark is thrown in for good measure.
Sheesh, people! Read the post before moderating it up and don't get blinded by the 'fancy' HTML table.
The point was, that with IE you don't even have to spread it around or use time installing it. It's just always there.
You may be able to copy Mozilla all you want, but you still have to use time to get that copy (whether it's downloading it from the 'net, from the internal LAN or walking over to the head geek and getting it on a CD) and then use time to install it.
Re:good news for Linux?
on
IBM Spins Down
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
What exactly have you been missing with regards to drivers for your hard disks? Hardly the area where drivers are needed..
Which hardly makes MS the evil guys in this instance. Another strike for incompetent admins, if they turn off support for the standard protocols and then bitch about not being able to use non-Outlook clients.
That's damn impressive - that your competitor implemented using.NET. Especially since the damn thing is still in beta.
Could it even be that his code just wasn't very good? Maybe it was the programmers writing sloppy code and not the platform that sucked?
While you can blame Microsoft for enabling a lot of unnecesarry (in most cases) junk, there is no excuse for not using the *published checklists*. For God's sake, even if you're lazy, you can simply download the IIS lockdown tool that does a lot of the work for you.
Advocating switching away from IIS because of incompetent server admins is shortsighted at best. You should switch away from IIS, if another platform gives you better performance, features or whatever it is you're going for. If your problem is, that you have selected a numbnut as the administrator of your IIS machines, you'll get no sympathy from me.
Why didn't you use an MPL/LGPL dual license? Doesn't the LGPL allow use under GPL terms as well?
Using an MPL/LGPL dual license would have caused unnecessary inconvenience for people wishing to distribute Mozilla code under GPL terms, by requiring them in some cases to change the license notices on Mozilla source files. An MPL/GPL/LGPL triple license reduces the potential inconvenience.
The review lists a number of things talked about in the book. I'll give you that the sentence is easy to misunderstand, but what is meant is that port 7 (which is the echo port) is discussed *as well as* ping floods (which isn't associated with the echo port but is simply mentioned in the same sentence). I think both the author and the reviewer are quite aware of the difference between TCP and UDP ports and the ICMP protocol.
If it 'only' takes a thousand Pentiums (Pentium 133? Pentium 1GHz?) around ten years to crack their 128-bit algorithm, it's one lousy algorithm that doesn't use all 128-bits of entropy.
A custom hardware design is very effective compared to a conventional attack (as aptly demonstrated by EFF and distributed.net in the RSA DES contests). However, it doesn't matter how fast your chip is if you use long enough keys (and >=128-bit keys are long enough). Try to do the math: even if testing a huge 10^12 keys per second (or more) it will take a long time to bruteforce a 128-bit key.
Basically all algorithms used today are 'strong', or rather, believed to be strong. This includes DES, Blowfish, RC4, RC5, IDEA, CAST etc. This means that it is only their key length that decides how hard it is to crack. Viewed in this light DES' 56-bit isn't enough. RC4 used with a small 40-bit or 56-bit is also vulnerable. Even so, the DES and RC4 algorithms themselves are strong. This is why it is feasible to bruteforce DES with a custom VLSI chip design: the key is simply to short. Doing a bruteforce on a strong 128-bit algorithm is futile whether doing a hardware or software-based attack.
There *is* a block preventing firmware updates on the external port. It is possible to disable this block but, obviously, only from the LAN port.
The entire 'vulnerability' is based on the rather farout presumption, that there is an ECHO server on the local LAN that the wannabe haxor can 'just' compromise and use to attack the ADSL modem.
Slashdot Mirror
VB.NET is the VB syntax we know and hate, with lot's of the worst parts fixed:
- Assignment is now simply identifier = expr. No more Set for objects or other such nonsense.
- All calls to functions and subs (sorry, procedures) must include parantheses. Thank God.
- Integer is now 32 bit.
- Dim i, j, k As Integer makes all of the variables integers instead of i and j as Variants.
- The Variant type is a thing of the past.
Et cetera.. Basically all of the things from the 'Thirteen Ways to Loathe VB' link. See Language Changes in Visual Basic at MSDN.There is a lot of other changes and additions. Frankly, I don't see why anyone would use VB.NET in favor of C#, J# or even Managed C++. It's great for upgrading old VB6 projects to better performing and more stable
As others have said, this is definately a configuration problem. It should never run this slow.
A common setup that causes symptoms like this:
If you've disabled Messenger (so it doesn't startup with Windows and is set to not run in the background) but haven't disabled 'Instant Messenging' i Outlook XP, it will be opened and closed every time you click on a new message. Needless to say, this is time consuming and very ineffective. The solution is to go into Tools/Options/Other and uncheck the 'Enable Instant Messenging in Microsoft Outlook' checkbox.
Sure, lot's of software is available to create P3P policies, including compact headers.
A nice one is IBM's P3P Policy Editor.
Excellent advice. A technical detail that is important to get right though: an extra bit in the key does not double the probable time to break it -- that is only true for symmetric key encryption where keyspace in bits signifies the total number of encryption keys.
In asymmetric systems, where the number of bits typically signifies the size of the prime used or some other type of like property, adding a single bit changes the 'estimated time to break' very little.
PGPckt's PGPdisk does indeed work under Windows XP - albeit with a few quirks. However, since it is based on the PGP v6 codebase, it is unable to read PGPdisks created by PGP v7.
The new PGPdisk in PGP v8 is the only one to function under Windows XP with the ability to read all versions of PGPdisks.
/pah
Somebody moderate this up. It may be an AC-comment, but it is clearly an interesting comment from a first-hand perspective.
Tom Cruise is a member of the Church of Scientology. Simple as that..
/pah
--
While Slashdot has it's shares of trolls in the various technical discussions, this is one of the most appalling comments I've ever seen moderated this high. In the same post, Portugal is called a third-world country (third-world?! while I wouldn't personally consider India a third-world country by normal definitions, I'll concede that some may) and in apparent attempt to defend telemarketers a blatantly racist remark is thrown in for good measure.
Sheesh, people! Read the post before moderating it up and don't get blinded by the 'fancy' HTML table.
--The point was, that with IE you don't even have to spread it around or use time installing it. It's just always there.
You may be able to copy Mozilla all you want, but you still have to use time to get that copy (whether it's downloading it from the 'net, from the internal LAN or walking over to the head geek and getting it on a CD) and then use time to install it.
What exactly have you been missing with regards to drivers for your hard disks? Hardly the area where drivers are needed..
Which hardly makes MS the evil guys in this instance. Another strike for incompetent admins, if they turn off support for the standard protocols and then bitch about not being able to use non-Outlook clients.
That's damn impressive - that your competitor implemented using .NET. Especially since the damn thing is still in beta.
Could it even be that his code just wasn't very good? Maybe it was the programmers writing sloppy code and not the platform that sucked?
Mod this *way* up there.
While you can blame Microsoft for enabling a lot of unnecesarry (in most cases) junk, there is no excuse for not using the *published checklists*. For God's sake, even if you're lazy, you can simply download the IIS lockdown tool that does a lot of the work for you.
Advocating switching away from IIS because of incompetent server admins is shortsighted at best.
You should switch away from IIS, if another platform gives you better performance, features or whatever it is you're going for. If your problem is, that you have selected a numbnut as the administrator of your IIS machines, you'll get no sympathy from me.
Read the FAQ linked from the article:
Why didn't you use an MPL/LGPL dual license? Doesn't the LGPL allow use under GPL terms as well?
Using an MPL/LGPL dual license would have caused unnecessary inconvenience for people wishing to distribute Mozilla code under GPL terms, by requiring them in some cases to change the license notices on Mozilla source files. An MPL/GPL/LGPL triple license reduces the potential inconvenience.
Which is the same thing a lot of non-US citizens and companies have thought for years about US law.. -- Philip
The review lists a number of things talked about in the book. I'll give you that the sentence is easy to misunderstand, but what is meant is that port 7 (which is the echo port) is discussed *as well as* ping floods (which isn't associated with the echo port but is simply mentioned in the same sentence). I think both the author and the reviewer are quite aware of the difference between TCP and UDP ports and the ICMP protocol.
If it 'only' takes a thousand Pentiums (Pentium 133? Pentium 1GHz?) around ten years to crack their 128-bit algorithm, it's one lousy algorithm that doesn't use all 128-bits of entropy.
A custom hardware design is very effective compared to a conventional attack (as aptly demonstrated by EFF and distributed.net in the RSA DES contests). However, it doesn't matter how fast your chip is if you use long enough keys (and >=128-bit keys are long enough). Try to do the math: even if testing a huge 10^12 keys per second (or more) it will take a long time to bruteforce a 128-bit key.
Basically all algorithms used today are 'strong', or rather, believed to be strong. This includes DES, Blowfish, RC4, RC5, IDEA, CAST etc. This means that it is only their key length that decides how hard it is to crack. Viewed in this light DES' 56-bit isn't enough. RC4 used with a small 40-bit or 56-bit is also vulnerable. Even so, the DES and RC4 algorithms themselves are strong. This is why it is feasible to bruteforce DES with a custom VLSI chip design: the key is simply to short. Doing a bruteforce on a strong 128-bit algorithm is futile whether doing a hardware or software-based attack.
There *is* a block preventing firmware updates on the external port. It is possible to disable this block but, obviously, only from the LAN port.
The entire 'vulnerability' is based on the rather farout presumption, that there is an ECHO server on the local LAN that the wannabe haxor can 'just' compromise and use to attack the ADSL modem.
/pah
'course it is:
http://www.ibm.com/java/jdk/118/linux/
No JDK 1.2 yet though..
Another interesting IBM/Java link: IBM's commitment to Java and the Sun J2EE brand name.
--
Philip