Security enhancements - I spoke to Allchin
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I also saw Allchin's roadshow. When talking about security and stability enhancements, he had a few things to say.
1. NX (No eXecute) will be native to the OS in both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions.
2. Running as a pure 64-bit OS requires all 64-bit drivers, which means all your device drivers will need to be rewritten. This is good, however, because Microsoft is also taking steps to streamline the driver creation process, provide cleaner templates, and do more to certify device drivers from third parties. Most of the crashes you experience on XP today, he said, are the result of bad device drivers.
3. Some of the malicious code out there right now works by installing itself as a device driver, meaning it has access to virtually anything. Allchin said he believes changes they are making to Windows would prevent even those device-driver Trojans from doing damage in the future.
4. Internet Explorer will run in some kind of "sandbox mode" that will prevent malicious code from damaging other parts of the system. How locked down IE will be will depend on which Zone you're browsing; as is the case now, the intranet zone might less secure than the Internet zone. I asked him if this sandboxing was being done through Connectix technology and he said no, it's not virtualization, it's something else. He credited it to integration with the core OS, though -- he said that this version of IE would definitely not be available for XP or any other version of Windows.
They're not 128x128
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I also saw Allchin's roadshow. The icons scale on the fly, like desktop icons in Mac OS X. You can work a slider to bump them up to a fairly large size.
In the mid-1990s, I ran IT for a graphic design firm, which consisted of some 50-75 Macintosh computers. Pretty much everything ran on Macs; even the accounting systems used Great Plains for Mac.
At one point, some of the staffers got the idea that network performance might not be optimal, and it was decided that we should do a performance audit. A contractor was brought in to spend a few hours sniffing our network, then go away and do a thorough, in-depth protocol analysis. The result of this analysis was a 20-page report detailing their findings.
The conclusion was that there was, indeed, a lot of unnecessary packets of traffic flying around the network. Their solution?
"Eliminate the Appletalk networking protocol."
Uh, yeah. Thanks guys, here's your $2,500.
(Maybe the best solution is to do whatever you can to educate management and set expectations at appropriate levels.)
Original StarTrek first explored diversity, and took us to where only our dreams led: Space. However it had bad writing, bad acting, and bad special effects. That wasn't the point of the show though.
Say what? Bad acting? Maybe, if you're one to jump on the "Shatner is a bad actor" bandwagon. I, for one, am not. I think he's a fine entertainer. His performances are downright iconic, so whether or not you personally like him, he's at least memorable to you. And which others of the actors were so awful?
Second, special effects? What other show of the era was as ambitious about its use of effects as Star Trek and yet maintained that level of quality? And since when do poor effects mean the series is no good... the Twilight Zone is one of the greatest series ever to air on television, but come on, that monster on the wing of the airplane in Shatner's episode was a guy in a freakin bear suit! (But that was still a great episode.)
And last but not least -- bad writing? Are you out of your freakin mind? The characterizations and relationships between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are classic television. The plots dealt with racism, totalitarianism, and other social issues, not to mention being darn good most of the time. And you had writers like Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison, Norman Spinrad doing scripts for the series.
Really, it's one thing to not like the original series because you're too young to appreciate it or something, but to knock it like you just did is just ridiculous.
Normal users use their computers as tools, and don't care if they have the latest whizbang version of Gaim, as long as they can IM their friends.
Seems like you picked a bad example there. I could cite Gaim as the prime case of an application that gets repeatedly updated precisely because people can't use it to IM their friends anymore. I find I'm interested in very few of the new features that come along in each release of Gaim. On the other hand, if Yahoo suddently decides to change its IM protocol such that it's incompatible, I expect the fixed version of GAIM to be available for my distro as soon as it's released. I don't want to have to wait six months for Ubuntu to release an entirely new version of the distro, complete with new kernel version and everything else. I just want Gaim to work.
Continuity has never been a particularly strong priority amongst the script editors at the Catholic Church. A lot of people are still pretty bummed about the 1965 relaunch of the franchise. People are often upset whenever anybody does something that could negatively impact the market for collectibles.
I admire Mark for spending money to make the world a better place, rather than spending it to make only his own life a better place.
I admire his efforts to organize schools to teach children and make the future a better place too.
This is the real spirit of open source, giving what you can in hopes it benefits others, improves the world, and in the long run benefits all of us.
Maybe I'll get rich one day and I can do the same.
Well, ya know, you don't have to be "rich" to spend money to make the world a better place. Small contributions to the charity of your choice really do add up. Feel bad when you walk past a dozen homeless people bumming for change on your way to work, but can't justify handing out cash that might go to somebody's drug habit? Donate to your local shelters/soup kitchens. Feel like kids are spending too much time in front of the TV and aren't exposed to the humanities? Donate to your local museums or arts organizations. Want to help healthcare? There's numerous efforts to cure diseases or promote international medical aid that you could contribute to. I'm not just trying to be glib, I'm really serious -- you should try it. Say you give $200 or something, to a couple of different organizations; I bet you won't really notice it's gone, in the long run, but the organizations you donated to really will appreciate it. And all of the above, even donating to a PBS station, does something to make the world a better place if it helps to enrich, educate, or otherwise help the needy.
Also, if you have a full-time job, don't forget to see if your employer will match your contributions. That's a great way to send extra money the direction you want it to go, above and beyond what you feel you can personally afford.
That and maintaining the beast, where are you going to sleep when it's in the garage with a blown motor? Or worse, the bloody thing starts leaking around the seams? The service center most likely will not allow you to stay in the vehicle while it's in their garage overnight.
Why is everybody so quick to knock this idea? I'd say the main problem is that it doesn't make much sense to have Kirk, Spock, etc. all hanging out at Starfleet together. For one thing, presumably the universe was a much smaller place before the Enterprise's original five-year mission. For another, we all know Spock served with Christopher Pike before Kirk came on board, so what's to suggest that he and Kirk were old school buddies?
Instead, why not do it with new characters? The only problem there is getting all the horrible "Next Generation" style moralizing out of it and keeping every character from being a different version of Wesley Crusher (jock Wesley, flirt Wesley, misunderstood loner Wesley, etc.) Hell, if you did it right, you could even bring back Wesley as an Academy instructor... why not?
Not sure I'd actually watch such a show, mind you, but it certainly doesn't sound any worse than the crap that's been passing for Star Trek in recent years.
And yes, folks, as of 5:54pm PST the domain "fuckyoutrekkies.com" was still available, according to GoDaddy! I'll leave it to somebody who's a bigger dork than me to snap it up and do something with it; I stopped caring about Star Trek a long time ago.
Personally I'm a prolific writer and programmer and I do think that I have the right to do what I want with my work, but within reason. If I can't maintain my source code, improve and invest in it, I should lose the rights to it.
Property rights should, morally, be tied to stewardship. Take care of something, and we the people grant you the right to "own" it.
Brilliant. So *I* create something from whole cloth and as soon as "you the people" deem I'm not "taking care of it" to your satisfaction, you will confiscate it for your own purposes, is that correct? Just for clarification: You've already said that writing and programming should have this doctrine applied to them... what about children? Do they count too?
Can't wait to live in your society... what are you going to call it? The Khmer something-or-other, maybe?
It would seem unwise to use Iron Realms' games, gamers, publication model, or general experiences as something that's generalizable in 2005.
He admits as much in TFA. But it's no skin off his nose either way; either you believe he has some solid advice for the gaming industry based on his own experience; or you write him off as a fluke, a total genius who's able to run a profitable company using a model that no other company in the industry would be able to pull off. Take your pick.
That would be some serious sour grapes, considering that the semiconductor division of Motorola has been spun off as an entirely different unit, called Freescale. That would be a little bit like punishing Lucent because AT&T Wireless agreed to merge with Cingular.
I, for the most part, agree with what you said but why wold solaris even bother coming out with an x86 version? I don't know. Is the x86 version targetted for business' as well or possibly home use?
Sun's business in SPARC-based workstations, which used to be one of its mainstays, has dropped to almost zero. Notice that Sun's new workstation class machines run on AMD x86 processors and other commodity hardware, in order to be price competitive. It makes sense, therefore, for Sun to produce an x86 version of Solaris.
One thing they did was to tie in prizes to donations.
Donate X amount or more and win some prize. It was innovative and I may use it in the future myself.
Not sure what you mean by "prizes" here. Was it innovative? I doubt it. Was it illegal? There's a good chance.
When you say "prizes," do you mean that everybody who donated a certain amount got the same gift, while supplies lasted? Or do you mean that everybody who donated a certain amount had a chance of winning something?
If the latter, then it constitutes an illegal lottery. It incorporates all three elements: Prize, Chance, and Consideration (money paid to enter).
Remember kids, "no purchase necessary" -- not because we're generous, but because it's the law! (In the U.S. at least.)
Man, Civilization was one of several factors that contributed to a friend of mine's disabling repeat stress injury. No I am not kidding, the guy has chronic, disabling pain in both forearms that gets flared up from stuff like turning doorknobs and tying his shoes. Stay away!! Civilization == EVIL!!
Um, aren't trade secrets and NDA's and all that pretty much all about greed, too?
Ummmm, no.
Shooting for a real-world example that has nothing to do with intellectual property here:
Business #1 is an automobile manufacturer. They come up with a new car that has an amazing paint job, one so awesome looking that everybody buys these cars, even though the engine could probably be improved a little bit.
Business #2 is an auto detailing shop. They send guys out into the field to find these new cars and use their keys to put huge scratches all along the length of them, so the owners will have no choice but to take their cars in to get repainted.
By your argument, both these business models are "about greed," because in both cases somebody's trying to make money. But any six year old can tell you which is the honest, fair-dealing businessman and which is just out to make a crooked buck.
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I also saw Allchin's roadshow. When talking about security and stability enhancements, he had a few things to say.
1. NX (No eXecute) will be native to the OS in both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions.
2. Running as a pure 64-bit OS requires all 64-bit drivers, which means all your device drivers will need to be rewritten. This is good, however, because Microsoft is also taking steps to streamline the driver creation process, provide cleaner templates, and do more to certify device drivers from third parties. Most of the crashes you experience on XP today, he said, are the result of bad device drivers.
3. Some of the malicious code out there right now works by installing itself as a device driver, meaning it has access to virtually anything. Allchin said he believes changes they are making to Windows would prevent even those device-driver Trojans from doing damage in the future.
4. Internet Explorer will run in some kind of "sandbox mode" that will prevent malicious code from damaging other parts of the system. How locked down IE will be will depend on which Zone you're browsing; as is the case now, the intranet zone might less secure than the Internet zone. I asked him if this sandboxing was being done through Connectix technology and he said no, it's not virtualization, it's something else. He credited it to integration with the core OS, though -- he said that this version of IE would definitely not be available for XP or any other version of Windows.
I also saw Allchin's roadshow. The icons scale on the fly, like desktop icons in Mac OS X. You can work a slider to bump them up to a fairly large size.
In the mid-1990s, I ran IT for a graphic design firm, which consisted of some 50-75 Macintosh computers. Pretty much everything ran on Macs; even the accounting systems used Great Plains for Mac.
At one point, some of the staffers got the idea that network performance might not be optimal, and it was decided that we should do a performance audit. A contractor was brought in to spend a few hours sniffing our network, then go away and do a thorough, in-depth protocol analysis. The result of this analysis was a 20-page report detailing their findings.
The conclusion was that there was, indeed, a lot of unnecessary packets of traffic flying around the network. Their solution?
"Eliminate the Appletalk networking protocol."
Uh, yeah. Thanks guys, here's your $2,500.
(Maybe the best solution is to do whatever you can to educate management and set expectations at appropriate levels.)
Second, special effects? What other show of the era was as ambitious about its use of effects as Star Trek and yet maintained that level of quality? And since when do poor effects mean the series is no good ... the Twilight Zone is one of the greatest series ever to air on television, but come on, that monster on the wing of the airplane in Shatner's episode was a guy in a freakin bear suit! (But that was still a great episode.)
And last but not least -- bad writing? Are you out of your freakin mind? The characterizations and relationships between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are classic television. The plots dealt with racism, totalitarianism, and other social issues, not to mention being darn good most of the time. And you had writers like Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison, Norman Spinrad doing scripts for the series.
Really, it's one thing to not like the original series because you're too young to appreciate it or something, but to knock it like you just did is just ridiculous.
Based on the Linux@Duke link, I'd say they're using OpenAFS.
Actually, if more people asked questions like that the world would be a much better place.
Ol' Man-driva
Dat Ol' Man-driva
He mus' know sumpin'
But don' say nuthin'
He jes' keeps rollin'
He keeps on rollin' along
Continuity has never been a particularly strong priority amongst the script editors at the Catholic Church. A lot of people are still pretty bummed about the 1965 relaunch of the franchise. People are often upset whenever anybody does something that could negatively impact the market for collectibles .
cf. "Golgafrincham"
Also, if you have a full-time job, don't forget to see if your employer will match your contributions. That's a great way to send extra money the direction you want it to go, above and beyond what you feel you can personally afford.
Instead, why not do it with new characters? The only problem there is getting all the horrible "Next Generation" style moralizing out of it and keeping every character from being a different version of Wesley Crusher (jock Wesley, flirt Wesley, misunderstood loner Wesley, etc.) Hell, if you did it right, you could even bring back Wesley as an Academy instructor... why not?
Not sure I'd actually watch such a show, mind you, but it certainly doesn't sound any worse than the crap that's been passing for Star Trek in recent years.
And yes, folks, as of 5:54pm PST the domain "fuckyoutrekkies.com" was still available, according to GoDaddy! I'll leave it to somebody who's a bigger dork than me to snap it up and do something with it; I stopped caring about Star Trek a long time ago.
Care to cite a source? It's irresponsible to spread misinformation that could have serious impact on people's health.
Can't wait to live in your society ... what are you going to call it? The Khmer something-or-other, maybe?
That would be some serious sour grapes, considering that the semiconductor division of Motorola has been spun off as an entirely different unit, called Freescale. That would be a little bit like punishing Lucent because AT&T Wireless agreed to merge with Cingular.
Aren't they all made up, by -- so to speak -- definition?
When you say "prizes," do you mean that everybody who donated a certain amount got the same gift, while supplies lasted? Or do you mean that everybody who donated a certain amount had a chance of winning something?
If the latter, then it constitutes an illegal lottery. It incorporates all three elements: Prize, Chance, and Consideration (money paid to enter).
Remember kids, "no purchase necessary" -- not because we're generous, but because it's the law! (In the U.S. at least.)
Man, Civilization was one of several factors that contributed to a friend of mine's disabling repeat stress injury. No I am not kidding, the guy has chronic, disabling pain in both forearms that gets flared up from stuff like turning doorknobs and tying his shoes. Stay away!! Civilization == EVIL!!
Ummmm, no.
Shooting for a real-world example that has nothing to do with intellectual property here:
Business #1 is an automobile manufacturer. They come up with a new car that has an amazing paint job, one so awesome looking that everybody buys these cars, even though the engine could probably be improved a little bit.
Business #2 is an auto detailing shop. They send guys out into the field to find these new cars and use their keys to put huge scratches all along the length of them, so the owners will have no choice but to take their cars in to get repainted.
By your argument, both these business models are "about greed," because in both cases somebody's trying to make money. But any six year old can tell you which is the honest, fair-dealing businessman and which is just out to make a crooked buck.