If you think people put to much importance on a word, then why don't you call yourself a Doctor of Network Topology or a Doctor of Network Infrastructure or a Doctor of Server Configuration and Maintenance?
For that matter, what is wrong with people bestowing professional titles on themselves because they feel like it? Of course, based soley upon your reasoning. Well, first off it dilutes that particular professional title. It takes the implied meaning of a certain level of knowledge and professionalism away from the term.
If that is is diluted enough, how do you know you can trust that so and so is what they claim to be? There are laws in many places that protect those professional titles simply for that reason alone. Nobody can just call themselves Doctor. They must have the professional skills and often a special license to practice in the state or nation they are practicing in.
That is not a requirement to work on Microsoft Products or any other Information Technology equipment or software.
It is required to design a bridge or to perform an operation on the human body and even to practice law. There are 3 different professional titles that I am talking about in the preceeding sentence.
There are many places where you would be heavily fined and perhaps even jailed for calling yourself an Engineer. You might be able to get away with the MCSE moniker, but if you explained it out, you would be breaking the law. I believe that throughout all of Canada the best you can call yourself is exactly what you are a Microsoft Certified Systems Technician.
You should refrain from diluting the professional business title of Engineer, otherwise you are simply one of many that are opening the door to dilute other additional professional titles. When that occurs, the person operating on your heart years from now might have gone to college for learning about surgery, but he might have just taken a 6 week boot camp and passed a few tests...
Of course, he/she will be calling themselves Doctor, but that title won't have any meaning anymore because the precedent of professional title dilution will have been set and possibly even 'won' in court. See, you aren't taking into account the ramifications of what calling yourself an Engineer means.
Are for the remainder of your life. I never have to recertify for one. With the Microsoft Way, you have to relearn practically everything every time a new iteration of their Server and Desktop OS is released. Then you have to either pay thousands for a new Boot Camp, or pay hundreds for some new books and then pay thousand or so for the new tests and then BAM, you are updated for a few years... Then you have to start all over once again.
If you knew UNIX 20 years ago, you would be comfortable with UNIX today. Sure, there are some tools that have been added, a few tools have been changed, but for the most part it has preserved the skills of its users, admins and programmers for nearly 30-something years now.
Today, if you became a Solaris Certified Systems Administrator, that would be with you for life. When new technologies arrive, you have to certify ONLY for those technologies. They don't change how Users, Groups and Domains act every few years. They don't change how systems are configured and controled every few years. Most of the update certs are based upon hardware knowledge, not major OS changes.
The same cannot be said for MS and Windows. The same will never be said about MS and Windows. They change everything far too often. Change is not always good. Having to go back and relearn everything is not going to help you move forward with other things. Having to reinvent the wheel every few years won't move you forward.
The lack of MS-Style changes are what has created such a strong backing of UNIX admins across the world. The lack of MS-Style changes are why the Internet was built on and runs on UNIX instead of DOS and later Windows.
Even if I had been around 20 years ago and using UNIX up to today. I would not call myself an Engineer, unless I had completed and Engineering Degree. I would call myself what I am, a highly skilled computer technician. A UNIX Technician, a UNIX Guru perhaps, but not a UNIX Engineer, unless I was an Engineer, especially if I was an Engineer that developed UNIX itself.
The title of Engineer is like the title of Physical Doctor. It is a respected title that is and should only be reserved for those that have gone the distance in an institution of higher learning and then spent time in the field gaining the respect of their peers.
It should NEVER be bestowed upon someone that could have taken the route of a 6 Day Boot Camp after barely completing High School. It doesn't matter that you didn't take that route. The point is that someone can and quite a few people have taken the 6 Day Boot Camp route.
I am not unemployed. In fact, I am a company officer in a respected small prototype manufacturing company. I am the head of IT and Purchasing.
A Liberal Arts Degree and experience in the field doesn't make you an Engineer. Unless you can sit down and read wiring schematics, make sense of complex mathematical equations and other aspects of 90% of all Engineering Degrees, then you are still nothing but a Technician. Perhaps highly skilled, but no more then a Technician.
BTW, it doesn't matter that you didn't attend a boot camp. What matters is that there are an incredible number of people out there that do attend boot camps and receive the 'right' to call themselves 'engineers'.
Personally, I never attended any boot camps or courses covering any Microsoft Course and I have passed their tests as well. However, after I discovered that passing their tests mean nothing a few years later, I decided to focue my attentions on LIFE-LONG certifications.
Like the CompTIA exams and then the Sun Solaris Administration Exams and perhaps the Cisco exams as well someday.
...to call yourself an Engineer then the local homeless crazy bum has of calling himself 'The Emperor of All Known Space'.
You are a glorified Technician. You took a test that people that go through a 6-day Boot Camp can pass. You are really a Microsoft Certified Systems TECHNICIAN. Nothing more, nothing less.
Of course, if you spent 4 to 6 years at an institution of higher learning going over nothing but Microsoft Products and the Engineering principles of those products, as well as how to implement, change and build those products and then spent 5 years in the field prior to taking a professional organization's Engineering test... Then you could call yourself an Engineer.
Real Engineers work themselves to the bone and sweat blood to be called Engineers. At best, you are a qualified and skilled Network Technician. Nothing more and nothing less.
By attempting to take away our right to bear arms, by creating a whole class of people that is content with sucking on the big teet of the gubmint by telling them how terrible life is for them and that they should stay on welfare and or wait for everything to finally be put into their lap.
The Democrats have created more anti-freedom and anti-self-determination laws then any other political party within the US. Sure, the Republicans created welfare, but the Democrats are the ones that perverted welfare into the abortion of a system it is today. Welfare today does little to nothing to instill people with the power and internal strength to make their lives better.
The Democrats are also some the staunchest supporters of anti-citizen laws like the Mickey Mouse Copyright extension act... They stood strong next to the Digital Millenium screw the Citizen Act.
The Republicans are just about as bad. They provide to much power to corporations at the expense of American workers of all levels of skill, education and income. They attempt to wrap everything up in the flag of Capitalism and Free-Market. All they do is cover up justice with an expensive kitchy curtain.
While I can't stand behind everything the Green and Libertarian parties stand for. They appear to be more for the citizens then the other two parties have become. Personally, I would rather us not have political parties, just like our founding fathers intended.
I advocate and end to the political machinations of the party structure. Either they end the parties entirely or they provide ample time to all the rest of the parties. The Green and Libertarian candidates for president should have been provided with equal time at the Presidential debates.
I just hope that one day all of this madness in our political system will be washed away and we can once again be lead by a government that is by the people for the people.
Across the 30 Windows 2000 and XP workstations that are in my network SEVERAL times the past week and MANY times more then that over the course of the past 2 years. We haven't had a single problem after running those patches on those workstations.
Take your broken record and toss it out already...
The only WindowsUpdate related problem I ever had was with a Windows NT 4.0 Server that I inherited from some smacktard that Overclocked the CPU. For some bizarre reason the server worked fine until it required a reboot after applying patches. After that, the CPU gave up the ghost. At first, I thought it was WindowsUpdate... Then I attempted to install Windows over itself, which didn't work... Then I attempted to install Linux onto the machine, which didn't work... It kept locking up a durring the install process...
It wasn't until a few install attempts with Windows NT 4.0 that I received a particular BSOD that showed that there was a problem with the CPU. It was one of those 'nice' and 'easy' to read error messages that pointed me into the right direction.
I had to replace the CPU to get it back up and running. (That's when I noticed that WindowsUpdate wasn't the cause.) WindowsUpdate isn't all that bad, just don't run the driver update portion of it and make sure that you have competent admins working on your network... Then you shouldnt' have any issues with it.
4. They will be conditioned to believe it's okay to have 5 different Client Access Licenses per Computer that connects to a server. (One for File-sharing, one for email, one for DB Access, one for Workgroup collaboration software [Think MS Project Server], one for Multi-media access and of course one for Internet access. [Think MS Proxy Server].
5. They will learn to ignore the truth that the MS Blaster worm was a Microsoft Windows Worm, not an Internet Computer Worm.
...it is like the ecnryption used on Windows XP machines, unless the user him/herself changes their password any encrypted document they have is "Permanently" gone...
If such a user loses their password and the admin didn't make a "Password Recovery Disk" (Who does BTW?) and the admin has to reset the password... BAM, all the documents are simply useless space taken up on the hard drive... (Only if the user encrypted them with Windows XP's built-in encryption...)
You don't have the rights via IRM through the use of DRM to make a PDF or a Hardcopy of that document. Yep! That is indeed one of the features, not often brought into the light, but it is indeed one of the features...
...when those agencies fail. Enron was doing its thing for a number of years, before the whistle was blown on them. Oh, you don't remember that?
Well, tell you what... You go an pick up the recent book written by the two Wall Street Journal reporters that broke the Enron story and subsequently brought most of what we know about Enron's dealings into the light and read about how they found out about what happened... It started with a little whistle that lead to the downfall of one of the most corrupt corporate structures developed in the United States.
There are many hundreds if not thousands of cases where whistleblowers have opened up the rest of the populace to illegal, dangerous and highly immoral behaviors of hundreds upon hundreds of corporations. Go to your public library and ask the librarian to help you locate information regarding such court cases, they will be more then helpful in assisting you.
Ken Lay likely knew all the crap that was going on in Enron to lead it to the end it was lead to. There is no possible way for someone in his position to possibly be blind to such a thing, unless he is completely incompetent and if that's the case, how did he get his position within Enron?
Would that mean that any and all executives that are caught in the Enron sort of thing either flat-out liars or incompetent? What would you rather be? In both cases, you shouldn't be employable in the position ANYWHERE else.
As for your statement about a handful of companies doing bad things and a "snooping, rule-breaking" secretary blowing the whistle...
I just have this to say...
As a citizen of the United States you have a moral and ethical responsibility to report immoral and unethical behavior if you come upon it through the course of your normal daily work duties. Notice, I didn't say you had an obligation of going places you don't belong, just that if you come across some damning evidence on accident, that you do the right thing with that damning evidence. Ignoring that data or "Showing Loyalty" to the company by eliminating the evidence makes you just as culpable as the original perpetrators in a decent person's eyes.
It would be like if you came across your uncle or aunt murdering someone out in the woods someplace. If you fail to report or help your aunt or uncle despose of the evidence you can be convicted as an accessory to the crime, which often has a penalty quite similar to the perpetrator. Now, would you call reporting your aunt or uncle murdering someone a morally and ethically just activity?
Tell me what makes Whistleblowing less noble to you. What makes reporting a crime or extremely morally corrupt behavior less noble and worthless to you?
Name me some legit uses of this technology, besides uses that are already covered under existing technologies. I believe that you will find very few legit reasons, however there are hundreds of illicit reasons to use this kind of technology.
...unlike in the previous years where a lowly secretary could get her hands on an executive document detailing such things as fleecing the investors, dumping (on accident or on purpose) HIGHLY toxic chemicals into the local residential area's water supply or other scandalous corporate activities will simply cease to be.
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.
Now, if we had a culture of doing the right thing, being honest and trusting, then there would be no issue with having such DRM capabilities being built into an office software package... Of course, that kind of feature would never be used in such a world as there wouldn't be any reaon, if people could be trusted.
I know that DRM makes sense on protecting a company's assets, but it can be the carte blanche to the CEO's of the world to forgo legal business practices...
Whether they know about it or not. It will be imperceptible, unless they routinely look through the offerings at their local software store...
One day, they might notice that the number of available office applications will shrink futher, or they will notice that there is now only one MP3 management software on the shelves, instead of 6 or 7. They might see only one DVD "Mastering" software for the home user, instead of 4 or 5 that I have seen on shelves today...
They might notice, they might shrug their shoulders and furrow their brow and wonder why all the other packages of software disappeared... Then they will come to the 'logical' conclusion that those other packages must have sucked and the developers of those other packages went out of business... They might not even give it that much thought...
So, what is needed is something that will raise awareness to EVERYONE. Not just the niche geek group... Soemthing has to be done to raise everyone's awareness of that law now... Otherwise, it will likely pass and there will be nothing to do about it.
Of course, after the law is passed, if a handful of rather slick geeks were to have hold of a few crucial patents...
Then it would be possible to get some MAJOR commercial vendors to cease shipment of this or that MAJOR software package, like MS Windows, then the regular populace will notice and will likely want to repeal the law.
Again, that doesn't explain how having this protest on the web would affect the average citizen. The web protest only affects geeks, these are people that are already concerned about the issue.
How many regular computer users will actually come across those web-sites? I would hazard to guess that the number would be small. They may start to read the page, most of those readers, if any, would simply surf somewhere else to look for the software or whatever they were looking for.
How many times have you gone to a web-site looking for something, not found your answer quickly and then left that site, never to return? Probably hundreds of times more then you could remember. I have probably done that well over a thousand times myself.
This/. story isn't raising the general awareness. This site isn't MSNBC or CNN or Reuters... It is just a web-site for a niche group of people. Sure, there are several hundred thousand registered users, but it is still geared and designed for a VERY tight portion of the populace.
Why would the MEPs be concerned about what amounts to 'personal' to 'small community' pages to the 'Greater Majority' of web users?
How many general Windows users, you know the kind that barely know how to use Windows Update, visit the affected web-sites? How many of those people vote? Are they a bigger or smaller voting block then the geek population?
Until this affects those people in the hundreds upon hundreds of thousands. Then they will likely continue to be uncaring and those MEPs can vote however they wish to vote. While it is true that some vocal minorities can gain favor in politics, if that vocal minority isn't going against Monstrously HUGE corporate interests.
In this case, this is a case of going against HUGE corporate interests. I do hope that this campaign succeeds and hope that it raises awareness, but I don't see it raising the general population's awareness all that much.
Capturing the minds of the general population will make this protest work. Cutting off Free Software sites from the people that would actually visit those sites and care about those sites doesn't do anything to capture the minds of the general populace. All it does is inconvenience the people that use those sites.
It is a protest within a bubble that gets geeks riled up, but doesn't expand into the rest of the world's mind.
True, there was a UNIX version of Catia... I believe that development for that stopped when the main push to NT for Catia was made a few years back.
There was once a UNIX version of Unigraphics as well... They stopped that development back with Release 15 or so...
Just because those two CAD/CAM packages ran on UNIX doesn't mean they will immediately run on Linux. First, they were compiled for different hardware architecture and a commercial UNIX. So, the required libraries simply won't be available on Linux. Porting to Linux would be like the porting job they did taking those CAD/CAM systems to Windows.
Then there are more specialized CAD/CAM systems... Like WorkNC and WorkNC CAD, sold by Sescoi in the United States. It is an AWESOME CAM system and a very decent CAD system. If that ran on Linux our entire CAD/CAM department would be running Linux.
As for CNC control... The CNC mills already have controllers, but the Direct Numeric Control software only runs in DOS or Windows. The DOS version is also so friggin' picky that it doesn't like anything else pretending to be DOS.
Oh.. as for SDRC's I-DEAS, that was also designed for a different architecture and is, in fact, no longer being developed and will be discontinued very soon...
...players to be of any use. To the regular, tax-paying/voting citizen, if a Free Software web-site is off the web for a few hours, days, weeks or even months, it doesn't affect them anymore then if a sports team in a sport they don't watch disolves.
Now, if Microsoft's European branch went off the web or Netscape or any number of other software companies that are BIG on the commercial radar were to join in on this protest, then more people would notice... But, that's not likely to happen...
I see this too often. We geeks, as a political body, are simlpy blind to reality. Most of the sites that are currently 'down' are only going to affect fellow computer geeks. We hurt ourselves more then we hurt the opposition. There has got to be a better way to actually take some ground in a battle like this one over software patents.
Who seriously came up with this idea with the honest belief that cutting off the Free Software community from Free Software sites would somehow affect the GREATER MAJORITY (That use Proprietart y software) that simply could care less about Free Software?
Now just talk Sescoi into developing WorkNC and WorkNC CAD for Linux, then Faro to develop a Faro Arm Interface to run on Linux...
Then talk Brown and Sharpe into making PCDMIS into running on Linux and we will be closer to being in business, solely on Linux...
There will still be that problem that Microsoft Project doesn't run on Linux and the closest thing to it (Mr. Project) on Linux is like comparing a fully loaded luxury car (Microsoft Project) with a ten year old Yugo that is missing the driver side door and is just about rusted to pieces and is also modified to only run on Railroad tracks. I have used both, so I can make that comparison.
...if I did, I would have mentioned the myriad of other software that is also severely lacking on the Linux platform...
Games is a HUGE thing that ties me to Windows at home. That's just about all I use my home machine for.
Recipe software is another thing that also appears to be lacking, at least commercially that is.
There are many special and niche markets that the average Linux zealot simply refuses to accept. Much of this software is used to run the world and bring new things into the world. Until it all runs on Linux, a desktop revolution will simply be impossible to slam home.
Sure you can do somewhat decent desktop publishing, sure you can handle programming tasks, and quite a few other desktop tasks...
However, you are making the same mistake as everyone that spouts that rhetoric. That mistake is quite simple to overlook, because you likely haven't been exposed to it...
The mistake is the lack of Manufacturing software, like CAD/CAM systems, Quality Analysis systems and other extremely important engineering and design software.
Catia, Unigraphics, Pro-E and other world-class CAD systems simply do not run on Linux. Control software for Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMM) is only available for the Microsoft Windows platform. That software often controls the basic construction of a manufacturing companies IT infrastructure.
It's the idea of 'incompatibility' and the desire to have a homogeneous network structure that 'forces' many companies to utilize an entirely Windows based network.
Get Catia and Unigraphics as well as the other software I mentioned to be fully supported and released on Linux and then there will be nothing stopping Linux from hitting the desks of the manufacturing industry.
While I have thought of setting up such a configuration for regular user authentication, I had always just 'felt' that I shouldn't do that with the root accounts on the various machines under my control.
I never have known why I felt that way, just that it is something that didn't seem right to me. So, when I do get that all slapped together on the network I am running, I will make certain to work it in such a way as to keep root out of the chain.
I already use a different root password on every server on the network, even though I synchronize the passwd files for the user passwords to remain the same across the systems.
The American people will resemble something akin to a Hutt from Star Wars and the Japanese could end up resembling something similar to the Psilon species from The Master of Orion.
Slashdot Mirror
If you think people put to much importance on a word, then why don't you call yourself a Doctor of Network Topology or a Doctor of Network Infrastructure or a Doctor of Server Configuration and Maintenance?
For that matter, what is wrong with people bestowing professional titles on themselves because they feel like it? Of course, based soley upon your reasoning. Well, first off it dilutes that particular professional title. It takes the implied meaning of a certain level of knowledge and professionalism away from the term.
If that is is diluted enough, how do you know you can trust that so and so is what they claim to be? There are laws in many places that protect those professional titles simply for that reason alone. Nobody can just call themselves Doctor. They must have the professional skills and often a special license to practice in the state or nation they are practicing in.
That is not a requirement to work on Microsoft Products or any other Information Technology equipment or software.
It is required to design a bridge or to perform an operation on the human body and even to practice law. There are 3 different professional titles that I am talking about in the preceeding sentence.
There are many places where you would be heavily fined and perhaps even jailed for calling yourself an Engineer. You might be able to get away with the MCSE moniker, but if you explained it out, you would be breaking the law. I believe that throughout all of Canada the best you can call yourself is exactly what you are a Microsoft Certified Systems Technician.
You should refrain from diluting the professional business title of Engineer, otherwise you are simply one of many that are opening the door to dilute other additional professional titles. When that occurs, the person operating on your heart years from now might have gone to college for learning about surgery, but he might have just taken a 6 week boot camp and passed a few tests...
Of course, he/she will be calling themselves Doctor, but that title won't have any meaning anymore because the precedent of professional title dilution will have been set and possibly even 'won' in court. See, you aren't taking into account the ramifications of what calling yourself an Engineer means.
Are for the remainder of your life. I never have to recertify for one. With the Microsoft Way, you have to relearn practically everything every time a new iteration of their Server and Desktop OS is released. Then you have to either pay thousands for a new Boot Camp, or pay hundreds for some new books and then pay thousand or so for the new tests and then BAM, you are updated for a few years... Then you have to start all over once again.
If you knew UNIX 20 years ago, you would be comfortable with UNIX today. Sure, there are some tools that have been added, a few tools have been changed, but for the most part it has preserved the skills of its users, admins and programmers for nearly 30-something years now.
Today, if you became a Solaris Certified Systems Administrator, that would be with you for life. When new technologies arrive, you have to certify ONLY for those technologies. They don't change how Users, Groups and Domains act every few years. They don't change how systems are configured and controled every few years. Most of the update certs are based upon hardware knowledge, not major OS changes.
The same cannot be said for MS and Windows. The same will never be said about MS and Windows. They change everything far too often. Change is not always good. Having to go back and relearn everything is not going to help you move forward with other things. Having to reinvent the wheel every few years won't move you forward.
The lack of MS-Style changes are what has created such a strong backing of UNIX admins across the world. The lack of MS-Style changes are why the Internet was built on and runs on UNIX instead of DOS and later Windows.
Even if I had been around 20 years ago and using UNIX up to today. I would not call myself an Engineer, unless I had completed and Engineering Degree. I would call myself what I am, a highly skilled computer technician. A UNIX Technician, a UNIX Guru perhaps, but not a UNIX Engineer, unless I was an Engineer, especially if I was an Engineer that developed UNIX itself.
The title of Engineer is like the title of Physical Doctor. It is a respected title that is and should only be reserved for those that have gone the distance in an institution of higher learning and then spent time in the field gaining the respect of their peers.
It should NEVER be bestowed upon someone that could have taken the route of a 6 Day Boot Camp after barely completing High School. It doesn't matter that you didn't take that route. The point is that someone can and quite a few people have taken the 6 Day Boot Camp route.
I am not unemployed. In fact, I am a company officer in a respected small prototype manufacturing company. I am the head of IT and Purchasing.
A Liberal Arts Degree and experience in the field doesn't make you an Engineer. Unless you can sit down and read wiring schematics, make sense of complex mathematical equations and other aspects of 90% of all Engineering Degrees, then you are still nothing but a Technician. Perhaps highly skilled, but no more then a Technician.
BTW, it doesn't matter that you didn't attend a boot camp. What matters is that there are an incredible number of people out there that do attend boot camps and receive the 'right' to call themselves 'engineers'.
Personally, I never attended any boot camps or courses covering any Microsoft Course and I have passed their tests as well. However, after I discovered that passing their tests mean nothing a few years later, I decided to focue my attentions on LIFE-LONG certifications.
Like the CompTIA exams and then the Sun Solaris Administration Exams and perhaps the Cisco exams as well someday.
...but no friggin' Linux icons!
What is this?
We demand Linux Icons Now!!!
...to call yourself an Engineer then the local homeless crazy bum has of calling himself 'The Emperor of All Known Space'.
You are a glorified Technician. You took a test that people that go through a 6-day Boot Camp can pass. You are really a Microsoft Certified Systems TECHNICIAN. Nothing more, nothing less.
Of course, if you spent 4 to 6 years at an institution of higher learning going over nothing but Microsoft Products and the Engineering principles of those products, as well as how to implement, change and build those products and then spent 5 years in the field prior to taking a professional organization's Engineering test... Then you could call yourself an Engineer.
Real Engineers work themselves to the bone and sweat blood to be called Engineers. At best, you are a qualified and skilled Network Technician. Nothing more and nothing less.
...as much as the Republicans do.
By attempting to take away our right to bear arms, by creating a whole class of people that is content with sucking on the big teet of the gubmint by telling them how terrible life is for them and that they should stay on welfare and or wait for everything to finally be put into their lap.
The Democrats have created more anti-freedom and anti-self-determination laws then any other political party within the US. Sure, the Republicans created welfare, but the Democrats are the ones that perverted welfare into the abortion of a system it is today. Welfare today does little to nothing to instill people with the power and internal strength to make their lives better.
The Democrats are also some the staunchest supporters of anti-citizen laws like the Mickey Mouse Copyright extension act... They stood strong next to the Digital Millenium screw the Citizen Act.
The Republicans are just about as bad. They provide to much power to corporations at the expense of American workers of all levels of skill, education and income. They attempt to wrap everything up in the flag of Capitalism and Free-Market. All they do is cover up justice with an expensive kitchy curtain.
While I can't stand behind everything the Green and Libertarian parties stand for. They appear to be more for the citizens then the other two parties have become. Personally, I would rather us not have political parties, just like our founding fathers intended.
I advocate and end to the political machinations of the party structure. Either they end the parties entirely or they provide ample time to all the rest of the parties. The Green and Libertarian candidates for president should have been provided with equal time at the Presidential debates.
I just hope that one day all of this madness in our political system will be washed away and we can once again be lead by a government that is by the people for the people.
Across the 30 Windows 2000 and XP workstations that are in my network SEVERAL times the past week and MANY times more then that over the course of the past 2 years. We haven't had a single problem after running those patches on those workstations.
Take your broken record and toss it out already...
The only WindowsUpdate related problem I ever had was with a Windows NT 4.0 Server that I inherited from some smacktard that Overclocked the CPU. For some bizarre reason the server worked fine until it required a reboot after applying patches. After that, the CPU gave up the ghost. At first, I thought it was WindowsUpdate... Then I attempted to install Windows over itself, which didn't work... Then I attempted to install Linux onto the machine, which didn't work... It kept locking up a durring the install process...
It wasn't until a few install attempts with Windows NT 4.0 that I received a particular BSOD that showed that there was a problem with the CPU. It was one of those 'nice' and 'easy' to read error messages that pointed me into the right direction.
I had to replace the CPU to get it back up and running. (That's when I noticed that WindowsUpdate wasn't the cause.) WindowsUpdate isn't all that bad, just don't run the driver update portion of it and make sure that you have competent admins working on your network... Then you shouldnt' have any issues with it.
Such a world would be wonderful to live in... We could benefit from Robotic Assistants and companions... See the movie 'Bicentenial Man'.
4. They will be conditioned to believe it's okay to have 5 different Client Access Licenses per Computer that connects to a server. (One for File-sharing, one for email, one for DB Access, one for Workgroup collaboration software [Think MS Project Server], one for Multi-media access and of course one for Internet access. [Think MS Proxy Server].
5. They will learn to ignore the truth that the MS Blaster worm was a Microsoft Windows Worm, not an Internet Computer Worm.
Have I missed any?
...it is like the ecnryption used on Windows XP machines, unless the user him/herself changes their password any encrypted document they have is "Permanently" gone...
If such a user loses their password and the admin didn't make a "Password Recovery Disk" (Who does BTW?) and the admin has to reset the password... BAM, all the documents are simply useless space taken up on the hard drive... (Only if the user encrypted them with Windows XP's built-in encryption...)
You don't have the rights via IRM through the use of DRM to make a PDF or a Hardcopy of that document. Yep! That is indeed one of the features, not often brought into the light, but it is indeed one of the features...
...when those agencies fail. Enron was doing its thing for a number of years, before the whistle was blown on them. Oh, you don't remember that?
Well, tell you what... You go an pick up the recent book written by the two Wall Street Journal reporters that broke the Enron story and subsequently brought most of what we know about Enron's dealings into the light and read about how they found out about what happened... It started with a little whistle that lead to the downfall of one of the most corrupt corporate structures developed in the United States.
There are many hundreds if not thousands of cases where whistleblowers have opened up the rest of the populace to illegal, dangerous and highly immoral behaviors of hundreds upon hundreds of corporations. Go to your public library and ask the librarian to help you locate information regarding such court cases, they will be more then helpful in assisting you.
Ken Lay likely knew all the crap that was going on in Enron to lead it to the end it was lead to. There is no possible way for someone in his position to possibly be blind to such a thing, unless he is completely incompetent and if that's the case, how did he get his position within Enron?
Would that mean that any and all executives that are caught in the Enron sort of thing either flat-out liars or incompetent? What would you rather be? In both cases, you shouldn't be employable in the position ANYWHERE else.
As for your statement about a handful of companies doing bad things and a "snooping, rule-breaking" secretary blowing the whistle...
I just have this to say...
As a citizen of the United States you have a moral and ethical responsibility to report immoral and unethical behavior if you come upon it through the course of your normal daily work duties. Notice, I didn't say you had an obligation of going places you don't belong, just that if you come across some damning evidence on accident, that you do the right thing with that damning evidence. Ignoring that data or "Showing Loyalty" to the company by eliminating the evidence makes you just as culpable as the original perpetrators in a decent person's eyes.
It would be like if you came across your uncle or aunt murdering someone out in the woods someplace. If you fail to report or help your aunt or uncle despose of the evidence you can be convicted as an accessory to the crime, which often has a penalty quite similar to the perpetrator. Now, would you call reporting your aunt or uncle murdering someone a morally and ethically just activity?
Tell me what makes Whistleblowing less noble to you. What makes reporting a crime or extremely morally corrupt behavior less noble and worthless to you?
Name me some legit uses of this technology, besides uses that are already covered under existing technologies. I believe that you will find very few legit reasons, however there are hundreds of illicit reasons to use this kind of technology.
...unlike in the previous years where a lowly secretary could get her hands on an executive document detailing such things as fleecing the investors, dumping (on accident or on purpose) HIGHLY toxic chemicals into the local residential area's water supply or other scandalous corporate activities will simply cease to be.
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.
Now, if we had a culture of doing the right thing, being honest and trusting, then there would be no issue with having such DRM capabilities being built into an office software package... Of course, that kind of feature would never be used in such a world as there wouldn't be any reaon, if people could be trusted.
I know that DRM makes sense on protecting a company's assets, but it can be the carte blanche to the CEO's of the world to forgo legal business practices...
Whether they know about it or not. It will be imperceptible, unless they routinely look through the offerings at their local software store...
One day, they might notice that the number of available office applications will shrink futher, or they will notice that there is now only one MP3 management software on the shelves, instead of 6 or 7. They might see only one DVD "Mastering" software for the home user, instead of 4 or 5 that I have seen on shelves today...
They might notice, they might shrug their shoulders and furrow their brow and wonder why all the other packages of software disappeared... Then they will come to the 'logical' conclusion that those other packages must have sucked and the developers of those other packages went out of business... They might not even give it that much thought...
So, what is needed is something that will raise awareness to EVERYONE. Not just the niche geek group... Soemthing has to be done to raise everyone's awareness of that law now... Otherwise, it will likely pass and there will be nothing to do about it.
Of course, after the law is passed, if a handful of rather slick geeks were to have hold of a few crucial patents...
Then it would be possible to get some MAJOR commercial vendors to cease shipment of this or that MAJOR software package, like MS Windows, then the regular populace will notice and will likely want to repeal the law.
Again, that doesn't explain how having this protest on the web would affect the average citizen. The web protest only affects geeks, these are people that are already concerned about the issue.
/. story isn't raising the general awareness. This site isn't MSNBC or CNN or Reuters... It is just a web-site for a niche group of people. Sure, there are several hundred thousand registered users, but it is still geared and designed for a VERY tight portion of the populace.
How many regular computer users will actually come across those web-sites? I would hazard to guess that the number would be small. They may start to read the page, most of those readers, if any, would simply surf somewhere else to look for the software or whatever they were looking for.
How many times have you gone to a web-site looking for something, not found your answer quickly and then left that site, never to return? Probably hundreds of times more then you could remember. I have probably done that well over a thousand times myself.
This
Why would the MEPs be concerned about what amounts to 'personal' to 'small community' pages to the 'Greater Majority' of web users?
How many general Windows users, you know the kind that barely know how to use Windows Update, visit the affected web-sites? How many of those people vote? Are they a bigger or smaller voting block then the geek population?
Until this affects those people in the hundreds upon hundreds of thousands. Then they will likely continue to be uncaring and those MEPs can vote however they wish to vote. While it is true that some vocal minorities can gain favor in politics, if that vocal minority isn't going against Monstrously HUGE corporate interests.
In this case, this is a case of going against HUGE corporate interests. I do hope that this campaign succeeds and hope that it raises awareness, but I don't see it raising the general population's awareness all that much.
Capturing the minds of the general population will make this protest work. Cutting off Free Software sites from the people that would actually visit those sites and care about those sites doesn't do anything to capture the minds of the general populace. All it does is inconvenience the people that use those sites.
It is a protest within a bubble that gets geeks riled up, but doesn't expand into the rest of the world's mind.
It was, afterall your own idea...
True, there was a UNIX version of Catia... I believe that development for that stopped when the main push to NT for Catia was made a few years back.
There was once a UNIX version of Unigraphics as well... They stopped that development back with Release 15 or so...
Just because those two CAD/CAM packages ran on UNIX doesn't mean they will immediately run on Linux. First, they were compiled for different hardware architecture and a commercial UNIX. So, the required libraries simply won't be available on Linux. Porting to Linux would be like the porting job they did taking those CAD/CAM systems to Windows.
Then there are more specialized CAD/CAM systems... Like WorkNC and WorkNC CAD, sold by Sescoi in the United States. It is an AWESOME CAM system and a very decent CAD system. If that ran on Linux our entire CAD/CAM department would be running Linux.
As for CNC control... The CNC mills already have controllers, but the Direct Numeric Control software only runs in DOS or Windows. The DOS version is also so friggin' picky that it doesn't like anything else pretending to be DOS.
Oh.. as for SDRC's I-DEAS, that was also designed for a different architecture and is, in fact, no longer being developed and will be discontinued very soon...
Now, if Microsoft's European branch went off the web or Netscape or any number of other software companies that are BIG on the commercial radar were to join in on this protest, then more people would notice... But, that's not likely to happen...
I see this too often. We geeks, as a political body, are simlpy blind to reality. Most of the sites that are currently 'down' are only going to affect fellow computer geeks. We hurt ourselves more then we hurt the opposition. There has got to be a better way to actually take some ground in a battle like this one over software patents.
Who seriously came up with this idea with the honest belief that cutting off the Free Software community from Free Software sites would somehow affect the GREATER MAJORITY (That use Proprietart y software) that simply could care less about Free Software?
Now just talk Sescoi into developing WorkNC and WorkNC CAD for Linux, then Faro to develop a Faro Arm Interface to run on Linux...
Then talk Brown and Sharpe into making PCDMIS into running on Linux and we will be closer to being in business, solely on Linux...
There will still be that problem that Microsoft Project doesn't run on Linux and the closest thing to it (Mr. Project) on Linux is like comparing a fully loaded luxury car (Microsoft Project) with a ten year old Yugo that is missing the driver side door and is just about rusted to pieces and is also modified to only run on Railroad tracks. I have used both, so I can make that comparison.
...if I did, I would have mentioned the myriad of other software that is also severely lacking on the Linux platform...
Games is a HUGE thing that ties me to Windows at home. That's just about all I use my home machine for.
Recipe software is another thing that also appears to be lacking, at least commercially that is.
There are many special and niche markets that the average Linux zealot simply refuses to accept. Much of this software is used to run the world and bring new things into the world. Until it all runs on Linux, a desktop revolution will simply be impossible to slam home.
Sure you can do somewhat decent desktop publishing, sure you can handle programming tasks, and quite a few other desktop tasks...
However, you are making the same mistake as everyone that spouts that rhetoric. That mistake is quite simple to overlook, because you likely haven't been exposed to it...
The mistake is the lack of Manufacturing software, like CAD/CAM systems, Quality Analysis systems and other extremely important engineering and design software.
Catia, Unigraphics, Pro-E and other world-class CAD systems simply do not run on Linux. Control software for Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMM) is only available for the Microsoft Windows platform. That software often controls the basic construction of a manufacturing companies IT infrastructure.
It's the idea of 'incompatibility' and the desire to have a homogeneous network structure that 'forces' many companies to utilize an entirely Windows based network.
Get Catia and Unigraphics as well as the other software I mentioned to be fully supported and released on Linux and then there will be nothing stopping Linux from hitting the desks of the manufacturing industry.
While I have thought of setting up such a configuration for regular user authentication, I had always just 'felt' that I shouldn't do that with the root accounts on the various machines under my control.
I never have known why I felt that way, just that it is something that didn't seem right to me. So, when I do get that all slapped together on the network I am running, I will make certain to work it in such a way as to keep root out of the chain.
I already use a different root password on every server on the network, even though I synchronize the passwd files for the user passwords to remain the same across the systems.
The American people will resemble something akin to a Hutt from Star Wars and the Japanese could end up resembling something similar to the Psilon species from The Master of Orion.
Kinda interesting, don't you think?