One reason why one could not write a corresponding worm for Linux, BSD, QNX, etc., is that it's possible to mount all user-writeable partitions noexec and mount all executable partitions read-only.
Another reason is that there is usually a higher level of quality control in both design and production for tools made by just about anyone else than MS.
As usual the problem can be avoided by using products that have fewer design and production flaws. Perhaps it goes without saying, but that means no MS.
Actually there was, but it may be an anachronism because people have become mobile and isolated compared to the days without motorized traffic and a 'dynamic' labor market. There used to be geographical / social / cultural / geological boundaries which could be said to define communities. For example, people along part of a river could be said to be part of the same community. Or a cluster of neighborhood with the same ethnicity. Or groups on either side of a ridge, canyon or mountain could be said to be part of different communities, same for other physical or psychological obstacles like the proverbial rail road tracks or motorway.
Yes, there were fuzzy edges to these old distributions more like brownian distribution.
Two details. First, recent versions of MS-Office make it all but impossible to save in RTF and other non-MS formats. Even if you are very familiar with the process there are many extra steps involved. Second, ".DOC" as mentioned by other posters is not a single format, but a suite of formats changed periodically to force new sales of MS-Office.
Here's a clue: there IS NO PERIMETER any more. The internal network is often as hostile as the internet. Laptops, PDAs, unauthorized WAPs on the corporate network... the list goes on.
Anyone who belives they can secure a network be securing the perimeter is deluding themselves.
I believe the phrase describing the effects of that delusion is "crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside."
Compartmentalization in general makes a lot of sense.
The Euro does not necessarily bring lower prices. The price of pretty much everything has gone way up in Finland since adopting the Euro. It's mostly the small things which have increased most, but those are what people generally buy. 1 euro was equal to 6 markka so many things that were 5 or 10 markka immediately got rounded up to 1 euro (6 markka). Most other items went up to the nearest 0.25 or 0.50 euro instead of to the nearest 0.05 (which is the smallest unit available). Shortly thereafter, these were ronuded up closer to the nearest Euro back down after a popular outcry, and then back up again. This year, things have crept up further.
Also, since people were used to seeing large sums in Markka, it apparently doesn't make as much impact when the price increase is "just a few coins".
Nowadays it's possible to see a cup of coffee for 3 Euro, like in the US, when 2 years ago the highest you were likely to see
So no, I do not think that switching to the Euro in the UK would necessarily bring lower prices for iTunes. Currencies and prices are separate.
Bill Gates certainly has a large fan base among some subcultures, and has rightly earned a reputation as a clever (and perhaps unscrupulous) business man. However, let's not get into creating revisionist versions of history.
Apple ][ plus VisiCalc and, later, IBM plus Lotus 1-2-3 got microcomputers onto every desktop.
Personally I would find it appropriate for a business school to have a Gates building, but as much damage as Bill has done to the entire computing industry and even computing science, I'd have to say the name of the building is entirely inappropriate. He and his company have caused (and are still causing) far too much damage to computer science and to the economy.
Better to name it after someone or something else. What's next the Osama Bin Laden building for Womens Studies?
I realize the post was a request for solutions for geeks, but meet your neighbors. Invite them over one address at a time for 45 minutes over a coffee or whatever. Keep it simple and friendly. No politics, bragging, etc. out of your mouth and let it slide if your guests let something slip. Small talk for 20-30 seconds if you see them on the street or at least wave.
What does that do? Not much, at first but then they know who you are and some will also get to know their neighbors better. Some may even become better friends.
I've done that in many places and in other places my neighbors have beat me to it. One street still has an annual block party to this day.
Millions of car alarms go off so often for no reason that it's no deterrent. However, you will act different when someone you know sees a problem with your car or other liabilities if they know you or vice versa.
Second, if your mom lives in a neighborhood with too high a yuppie content, then it may be easier to move than to retrain them. They're not community builders, but instead they rather let it fall apart.
I'm sure your mom can handle these thing, but they take a few months to a couple of years to kick in.
You might want to tell Clear Channel that. They've obviously not gotten the memo.
ClearChannel is not in the business of broadcasting content, the top managers have clearly pointed out that their business is to sell airtime to advertisers. The frequencies and call-letters that ClearChannel has acquired may have once been used to broadcast music, culture, sports, etc, and used just enough advertising to get ahead, but ClearChannel is the opposite. If they could do 100% ads, then they would according to the few interviews I've seen.
No reason to think otherwise of MS. In all likelihood if this goes anywhere it will go the way MSIE went with Netscape. The out come of the anti-trust trials showed that MSIE was used to kill netscape -- once Netscape was dead, all advancement on MSIE stopped.
This attack on freedom is going on in other areas.
The Archivist of the United States was replaced by the Bush junta
without any consultation with any professional organization of archivists or historians. Nor has the process been open for public discussion and input.
The Archivist of the United States is responsible for NARA which has some of these responsibilities.
Ensuring adequate documentation of the government's actions and decisions;
Holding government officials and agencies accountable for public service;
Safeguarding the rights and privileges of individual citizens as well as many groups and communities of interest in society; and
Preserving the cultural heritage and historical memory of government for the best interests of all citizens.
All that data you once could get as a result of FOIA? Goobye to that. If it's shredded, burned degaussed or left to rot, it's not there to request. Even apathy can take its toll: physical media like tapes pass on to entropy in as little as 5 years as well as cheap CD-Rs. The data formats themselves are a separate matter.
This is a turn in the wrong direction as many expensive mistakes and scandals can be avoided by keeping decisions and data in daylight. Data, especially, has a strong economic benefit if it can be re-used without a lot of red tape.
Finland and Sweden have a good example in that the right to public information is part of their respective constitutions. In the case of Sweden this goes back to 1766. Historians might find some interesting analogies between today's situation with the U.S. and UK as compared with the situation in Sweden back then leading up to the change in the constitution.
Actually, two other forms of commuter information would be easier to manage that pulling data from the traffic sensors, though that would be good to have too, for some.
One would be time tables for commuter transport or, better, a
route planner showing which buses and trains will get you from one address to another.
Another, would be to show parking lot status. This might be harder politically, if the city has balkanized its parking managment. But the idea would be to have information about how many empty spaces are left in each lot. Some cities, again like Copenhagen, have real time displays at key intersections so that drivers don't waste time, money and fuel while hunting for parking. Furthermore, getting cars off the road decreases the severity of traffic jams and reduces the number of cars idling in gridlock thus reducing photochemical smog and improving health ($$$) and quality of life.
You could take either one of the above a step or two further and offer an SMS service where, once a day at a time chosen by the subscriber, a message regarding the delay status of a certain route or the parking lot status be sent.
If a crime happens somewhere close to where you are, and you match the vauge description given by witnesses to that crime? Then you are guilty. At very least, you'll be explaining why you were there, and trying to explain that you didn't do the crime.
The initial suspect in last years assasination of Sweden's Foreign Minsister, Anna Lindh, is a good example of how that can happen even on camera. The press and police caught hold of the first kook running a double life that they could catch on CCTV and hung him out to dry. Granted the character is question wasn't the best character, but pretty much every mistake or failure in his life was trotted out by the media. If his life wasn't ruined before, that did it for sure. Oh. And it turned out that it was actually someone else they saw on the tape.
CCTV is a waste of time and money. The resolution is so bad that it's hard to impossible to recognize even acquantances, except by gait or clothing. I've used CCTV as a guard. I also know some small business owners who use CCTV, despite constantly wondering who has entered the premises. Quite often the potential customer has time to walk back out.
My take on the whole CCTV thing is that it's just the latest scheme to sell expensive things which waste more time and resources.
The trucks also have far more load per axel than the smaller cars. In some regions, there is hardly any monitoring of loads. That leads to rapid, heavy damage to the highways and bridges they use repeatedly.
I'm not sure of any time of day when the roads are empty, but some times when the sun is low on the horizon, you can see the deep ruts in the truck lane. Or you can try driving a small car with manual steering, you'll feel the ruts for sure.
Sure the taxes and fees for trucks pay for some of the upkeep, but certainly not in its entirety. Everyone else pays for the rest, which in effect is a subsidy. Rail, at least in the U.S. and Canada, is severely under utilized for freight. Roads would be much less crowded and much safer with inter-city freight going by train. Outsource the logistics to FedEx or somebody. Semi-trailers fit nicely two to a wagon.
Just a bit of Chicago trivia, there used to be an extensive network of cargo / freight tunnels under the down town intended to keep delivery and transport vehicles off the street allowing them to deliver right to the basements.
Both examples, RNC and deer, show problems caused by a loss of vision.
The white tail deer population is out of control. As others have mentioned, there are the mass starvation you see towards the end of every winter. What has not been mentioned here so far has been the spread of disease through the undernourished over crowded deer populations which takes out many with a slow lingering death.
Some of the reason for the over popluation is the lack of predators aside from cars and a handful of hunters - no big cats left anywhere in the Midwest, for example. Perhaps the largest reason is that all the normal habitat (i.e. forest) is gone and what remains is nearly perfect for deer. The sparse clusters of trees remaining in the U.S. is technically classified as "edge" rather than "forest".
From a monetary point of view, the damage done by motor vehicle-deer collisions and the damage done to crops out weigh the economic benefits from hunting licenses and pariphenalia. But with out the meager amount of hunting, the problems caused by the animals and to the animals would be much worse.
Much of the habitat has been destroyed by an invasive species called Long Pig in the Pacific. Want the deer to be healthy with as sustainably population? You want wolves, bear, wolverines, puma to come back? Then go after the source of the problem and cull the Long Pig. Watch out though, they're vicious and the whole pack will turn on you if it's not a clean kill and they get a chance to track you.
Perhaps one reason US hunting licenses are sold rather than earned and that the US does not manage its natural resources is fear of abuse from a centralized source. Like we have in the example of the Indymedia Logs being supeonaed. If more information were a matter of public record, such as the names of the RNC delagates, then problems like this wouldn't arise. Nor would a lot of scandals like Enron & co.
Hey, it's about choosing the national leader. Why shouldn't it be public record?
Since time is short and the focus is one getting them settled in with administrating the system, history and philosophy don't need a separate section.
That said, a few words here and there to put to rest some of the myths about the GPL can be quite useful. Also, sometimes a little history is needed to put things in context. Just a few words, though.
Are you covering desktop machines or mostly servers?
Either way, show them how to make a kickstart disk or other ways to automate a custom installation.
Packaging managers are a must. Whether it's dpkg or rpm or yast, show them the different tricks and options. Also, if show how to roll a custom package, but choose one of the simpler ones.
For servers, cover iptables, tcpwrappers, inetd/xinetd, sshd, sudo and apache.
System log file analysis is another must.
For desktop machines, cover KDE/Fluxbox/Gnome. Kiosk mode might be useful for some parts of your work environment.
If you have Micro$oft data, bite the bullet and buy their office suite (if you can claim student or educator status, the price for three installs is below $200.00) and you have transparent exchange between platforms.
Not true. I've had several versions of MS-Office for Macintosh as well as OpenOffice.org Buying MS-Office does not guarantee transparent exchange between platforms. (One 90% Macintosh dept. where I worked used to get problems with munged MS-Office documents until we taught the secretaries how to make PDFs)
Surprisingly, or maybe not, OpenOffice.org aka OOo does a better job with legacy file formats than does MS-Office. So, save your money, avoid viruses and ease your transition with OOo.
If you're already using OOo on your old platform, then the transition will be very smooth.
You can get a quality, normal, three-button, USB, optical wheel mouse for about $15 USD and not worry. Or a track ball or whatever.
I have done this for several years now. When I use a mouse, I can't cope with just one or two buttons so I plug my own in.
In contrast, over the last years I've gotten used to the track pad having only one button and can kind of deal with using shift, option, command keys in conjunction with the track pad. It is possible to 'click' by tapping on the trackpad, but it's not the default setting.
Which leads back to the thread about that company's future role and how or if that fits into F/OSS.
If you ask me, it should go with where its domain expertise is and drop the pretense of being anything other than a marketing company. Focus only on marketing.
That would kill two birds with one stone. It'd put an end to major security, maintenance budget nightmares at the same time it would allow F/OSS or any group with the money to have the world's strongest marketing.
But having said that, you are right. Word file format compatibility is the #1 problem.
Paradoxically, MS-Word does a worse job at compatibility with older versions of the MS-Word format than does OpenOffice.org aka OOo. OOo also has superior support for other legacy formats like WordPerfect, which can be found in abundance in the government or in law firms.
Most of Dvorak's commentary is just grumbling about a bad product, but
here is what might be the core of the problem:
"The ever-changing.doc format.
Even saving to older.doc formats or.rtf seldom gets perfect
results. I'm always amused by the warning that things will change
if I save in some format or other, yet after the save absolutely
nothing has changed."
A more stable format is needed by businesses, agencies, organizations and individuals that value the information stored on their local drives, archives and file servers and/or is finds a benefit from the access or re-use of such information.
This is especially true for documents that must be reusable or must be stored for longer than the half-life of the MS-Word formats (about 18 months). For these, there should be some concern about choosing a more
stable file format at least.
A more stable file format is not an option when toeing the MS
line, because MS uses changes in [default] file formats to drive the sales
of new versions of MS Office.
Especially since 68% of MS Office sales come from sales of new hardware, where in contrast for MS Windows this is 90%. That means that some portion of that 32% represents the sale to owners of earlier versions and is presumably driven by file format incompatibility.
Given that MS-Office is one of the two *profitable* lines for MS, that's not
likely to change for the better.
In fact, Microsoft has recently quit the U.N.
standards group:
and is the only member of OASIS holding back on the XML-based file
formats.
"
OASIS calls for OpenOffice XML spec"
Most people can connect the dots and see where MS is heading with this. The way out is to insist on products that use file formats well documented for interoperability and long term preservation. Legal issues aside, look at how well GIF and PDF have weathered the years. Try the same with a word-processing document of the same vintage!
Ignoring it == making the problem worse
on
Dealing with Intruders?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The network administrator at one site I was at reduced the number of intrusions by more than 1/3 over a 2 month periond and kept it down the whold time she kept the job.
How? When she found out about attacks and attempted intrusions, she got on the phone with the netblock owner and gave them an earful and followed up until something happened, even if it was only a small improvement. If need be, she reported it to the police and was even able to convince them that crime was an area of their responsibility even if they did not currently have the expertise.
The attacks dropped off rapidly after a few weeks. And since shed kept notes about who she talked with, when and about what, there was very little runaround. When she started that, it took about 45 minutes per day, but by the end it was down to around 15 on average.
Historical data show that periods of national debt and bad economies in Sweden and Denmark do seem to correspond to changes in political trends or ideologies. Though not in the way that some might wish.;)
Currently, at least in Sweden, you have an enormous burden on the state caused by the privatization of previously state run services. Look at what's happened in the last 10 years to the rail service, the post service, day care, and even medical care. All these cost more (rail now costs 5x what it did before privatization), yet provide poorer quality service and less of it. You can't provide the same level and quality of service for the same price *and* show a 40% profit margin at the same time, something has to give.
At the same time you had what amounts to a hostile take over and liquidation of the major private industries. The shipyards are closed, SAAB and Volvo sold overseas, Findus sold, Ericsson sold, etc. and many others.
Denmark, has had it's share of the above, too. But to add to the problem, there have been a few major incidents of extreme graft among some politicians and then the ongoing clean up from the graft.
Just a point of information: Capitalism seemed to have failed quite badly during the 1930's and was only propped up again through a long period of state programs, e.g. WPA.
If you want to tie this back into the discussion, F/OSS projects by nature allow competition in a service economy. MS and some other closed, proprietary systems more closely resemble the dreadful Soviet style monoliths where the great Chairman (e.g. Chairman Bill) or the great poitburo (e.g. share holders or board of directors) steer with an iron hand.
Read some history and some newspapers, especially the older newspapers from last century -- they're on microfiche or online at your library.
poot, which cities and libraries were those with so few network terminals?
Yes, some libraries will have only a few stations. That may be enough or it may not be depending on the demand. Most I've seen have many more.
I visit quite a few libraries that have excellent ratios. My favorite one has only 5 (all linux, no thin client), but since it's for a small village and the usage is spread evenly through the day, that's usually enough. On the other hand, I've seen libraries for large cities with only 5 or 6 terminals and you often have to book a week in advance for a 30 minute session. I've also seen a few libraries with more than 70 - 100 public terminals in the cities.
Now by available to you mean physically present or by actually up-and-running? Some friends' libraries had stations present, but usually a good percentage were down at any given time with blue screens or such. Wiping MS and replacing it with Mandrake or Debian or Fedora gave more uptime (== better service) and reduced maintenance staff loads (== better service) and reduced stress on regular staff (== better service).
Several libraries I visit have a large number of public terminals. Some even have some semi-public (members only or students only etc). Most have legacy hardware, either their own from when the Windows NT/2k sickness spread or else from donations or dumpster diving. The latter usually choose to run linux tuned for the old hardware. The former usually end up running linux when they find that MS-Windows is too labor intensive to maintain and has a lot of down time. One site wiped MS-Windows from 70 public terminals and replaced it with a locally customized debian. Their MS-Windows geeks still have MS-Windows on some of the staff machines, but are starting to gumble at even that : their 70 linux machines require less maintenance (especially corrective) than 5 MS-Windows machines.
Anything that improves uptime and reduces the load on staff improves service. Anything else should be chucked.
Even if you don't count the design problems in MS products that give unauthorized remote access to the machines, the licenses do.
W2K SP3, XP SP1 violate HIPAA.
Don't believe me? Look at the EULA, it grants third party access to any and all data and programs.
Any and all hospitals or health care providers that knowingly use MS Windows are setting themselves up for either gross negligence or willful negligence lawsuits. Furthermore, on the technical side, for life-critical systems something stable like QNX would be best practice.
The U Toronto conference back in May on Open Source and Free Software covered many of these issues on the morning of the last day. Unfortunately, the medical session is
not archived, but could probably be if there is enough interest.
Slashdot Mirror
Another reason is that there is usually a higher level of quality control in both design and production for tools made by just about anyone else than MS.
As usual the problem can be avoided by using products that have fewer design and production flaws. Perhaps it goes without saying, but that means no MS.
Yes, there were fuzzy edges to these old distributions more like brownian distribution.
Two details. First, recent versions of MS-Office make it all but impossible to save in RTF and other non-MS formats. Even if you are very familiar with the process there are many extra steps involved. Second, ".DOC" as mentioned by other posters is not a single format, but a suite of formats changed periodically to force new sales of MS-Office.
Didn't the DMCA legislation slide through while the media obsessed about whose jizz stain was on Lewinsky's dress?
Compartmentalization in general makes a lot of sense.
Also, since people were used to seeing large sums in Markka, it apparently doesn't make as much impact when the price increase is "just a few coins". Nowadays it's possible to see a cup of coffee for 3 Euro, like in the US, when 2 years ago the highest you were likely to see
So no, I do not think that switching to the Euro in the UK would necessarily bring lower prices for iTunes. Currencies and prices are separate.
Apple ][ plus VisiCalc and, later, IBM plus Lotus 1-2-3 got microcomputers onto every desktop.
Personally I would find it appropriate for a business school to have a Gates building, but as much damage as Bill has done to the entire computing industry and even computing science, I'd have to say the name of the building is entirely inappropriate. He and his company have caused (and are still causing) far too much damage to computer science and to the economy.
Better to name it after someone or something else. What's next the Osama Bin Laden building for Womens Studies?
What does that do? Not much, at first but then they know who you are and some will also get to know their neighbors better. Some may even become better friends.
I've done that in many places and in other places my neighbors have beat me to it. One street still has an annual block party to this day.
Millions of car alarms go off so often for no reason that it's no deterrent. However, you will act different when someone you know sees a problem with your car or other liabilities if they know you or vice versa.
Second, if your mom lives in a neighborhood with too high a yuppie content, then it may be easier to move than to retrain them. They're not community builders, but instead they rather let it fall apart.
I'm sure your mom can handle these thing, but they take a few months to a couple of years to kick in.
No reason to think otherwise of MS. In all likelihood if this goes anywhere it will go the way MSIE went with Netscape. The out come of the anti-trust trials showed that MSIE was used to kill netscape -- once Netscape was dead, all advancement on MSIE stopped.
The Archivist of the United States was replaced by the Bush junta without any consultation with any professional organization of archivists or historians. Nor has the process been open for public discussion and input. The Archivist of the United States is responsible for NARA which has some of these responsibilities.
All that data you once could get as a result of FOIA? Goobye to that. If it's shredded, burned degaussed or left to rot, it's not there to request. Even apathy can take its toll: physical media like tapes pass on to entropy in as little as 5 years as well as cheap CD-Rs. The data formats themselves are a separate matter.
This is a turn in the wrong direction as many expensive mistakes and scandals can be avoided by keeping decisions and data in daylight. Data, especially, has a strong economic benefit if it can be re-used without a lot of red tape.
Finland and Sweden have a good example in that the right to public information is part of their respective constitutions. In the case of Sweden this goes back to 1766. Historians might find some interesting analogies between today's situation with the U.S. and UK as compared with the situation in Sweden back then leading up to the change in the constitution.
One would be time tables for commuter transport or, better, a route planner showing which buses and trains will get you from one address to another.
Another, would be to show parking lot status. This might be harder politically, if the city has balkanized its parking managment. But the idea would be to have information about how many empty spaces are left in each lot. Some cities, again like Copenhagen, have real time displays at key intersections so that drivers don't waste time, money and fuel while hunting for parking. Furthermore, getting cars off the road decreases the severity of traffic jams and reduces the number of cars idling in gridlock thus reducing photochemical smog and improving health ($$$) and quality of life.
You could take either one of the above a step or two further and offer an SMS service where, once a day at a time chosen by the subscriber, a message regarding the delay status of a certain route or the parking lot status be sent.
CCTV is a waste of time and money. The resolution is so bad that it's hard to impossible to recognize even acquantances, except by gait or clothing. I've used CCTV as a guard. I also know some small business owners who use CCTV, despite constantly wondering who has entered the premises. Quite often the potential customer has time to walk back out.
My take on the whole CCTV thing is that it's just the latest scheme to sell expensive things which waste more time and resources.
The trucks also have far more load per axel than the smaller cars. In some regions, there is hardly any monitoring of loads. That leads to rapid, heavy damage to the highways and bridges they use repeatedly.
I'm not sure of any time of day when the roads are empty, but some times when the sun is low on the horizon, you can see the deep ruts in the truck lane. Or you can try driving a small car with manual steering, you'll feel the ruts for sure.
Sure the taxes and fees for trucks pay for some of the upkeep, but certainly not in its entirety. Everyone else pays for the rest, which in effect is a subsidy. Rail, at least in the U.S. and Canada, is severely under utilized for freight. Roads would be much less crowded and much safer with inter-city freight going by train. Outsource the logistics to FedEx or somebody. Semi-trailers fit nicely two to a wagon.
Just a bit of Chicago trivia, there used to be an extensive network of cargo / freight tunnels under the down town intended to keep delivery and transport vehicles off the street allowing them to deliver right to the basements.
The white tail deer population is out of control. As others have mentioned, there are the mass starvation you see towards the end of every winter. What has not been mentioned here so far has been the spread of disease through the undernourished over crowded deer populations which takes out many with a slow lingering death.
Some of the reason for the over popluation is the lack of predators aside from cars and a handful of hunters - no big cats left anywhere in the Midwest, for example. Perhaps the largest reason is that all the normal habitat (i.e. forest) is gone and what remains is nearly perfect for deer. The sparse clusters of trees remaining in the U.S. is technically classified as "edge" rather than "forest".
From a monetary point of view, the damage done by motor vehicle-deer collisions and the damage done to crops out weigh the economic benefits from hunting licenses and pariphenalia. But with out the meager amount of hunting, the problems caused by the animals and to the animals would be much worse.
Much of the habitat has been destroyed by an invasive species called Long Pig in the Pacific. Want the deer to be healthy with as sustainably population? You want wolves, bear, wolverines, puma to come back? Then go after the source of the problem and cull the Long Pig. Watch out though, they're vicious and the whole pack will turn on you if it's not a clean kill and they get a chance to track you.
Perhaps one reason US hunting licenses are sold rather than earned and that the US does not manage its natural resources is fear of abuse from a centralized source. Like we have in the example of the Indymedia Logs being supeonaed. If more information were a matter of public record, such as the names of the RNC delagates, then problems like this wouldn't arise. Nor would a lot of scandals like Enron & co.
Hey, it's about choosing the national leader. Why shouldn't it be public record?
That said, a few words here and there to put to rest some of the myths about the GPL can be quite useful. Also, sometimes a little history is needed to put things in context. Just a few words, though.
Either way, show them how to make a kickstart disk or other ways to automate a custom installation.
Packaging managers are a must. Whether it's dpkg or rpm or yast, show them the different tricks and options. Also, if show how to roll a custom package, but choose one of the simpler ones.
For servers, cover iptables, tcpwrappers, inetd/xinetd, sshd, sudo and apache. System log file analysis is another must.
For desktop machines, cover KDE/Fluxbox/Gnome. Kiosk mode might be useful for some parts of your work environment.
Surprisingly, or maybe not, OpenOffice.org aka OOo does a better job with legacy file formats than does MS-Office. So, save your money, avoid viruses and ease your transition with OOo.
If you're already using OOo on your old platform, then the transition will be very smooth.
In contrast, over the last years I've gotten used to the track pad having only one button and can kind of deal with using shift, option, command keys in conjunction with the track pad. It is possible to 'click' by tapping on the trackpad, but it's not the default setting.
If you ask me, it should go with where its domain expertise is and drop the pretense of being anything other than a marketing company. Focus only on marketing.
That would kill two birds with one stone. It'd put an end to major security, maintenance budget nightmares at the same time it would allow F/OSS or any group with the money to have the world's strongest marketing.
Most of Dvorak's commentary is just grumbling about a bad product, but here is what might be the core of the problem:
A more stable format is needed by businesses, agencies, organizations and individuals that value the information stored on their local drives, archives and file servers and/or is finds a benefit from the access or re-use of such information. This is especially true for documents that must be reusable or must be stored for longer than the half-life of the MS-Word formats (about 18 months). For these, there should be some concern about choosing a more stable file format at least.
A more stable file format is not an option when toeing the MS line, because MS uses changes in [default] file formats to drive the sales of new versions of MS Office. Especially since 68% of MS Office sales come from sales of new hardware, where in contrast for MS Windows this is 90%. That means that some portion of that 32% represents the sale to owners of earlier versions and is presumably driven by file format incompatibility. Given that MS-Office is one of the two *profitable* lines for MS, that's not likely to change for the better. In fact, Microsoft has recently quit the U.N. standards group:
and is the only member of OASIS holding back on the XML-based file formats.How? When she found out about attacks and attempted intrusions, she got on the phone with the netblock owner and gave them an earful and followed up until something happened, even if it was only a small improvement. If need be, she reported it to the police and was even able to convince them that crime was an area of their responsibility even if they did not currently have the expertise.
The attacks dropped off rapidly after a few weeks. And since shed kept notes about who she talked with, when and about what, there was very little runaround. When she started that, it took about 45 minutes per day, but by the end it was down to around 15 on average.
Currently, at least in Sweden, you have an enormous burden on the state caused by the privatization of previously state run services. Look at what's happened in the last 10 years to the rail service, the post service, day care, and even medical care. All these cost more (rail now costs 5x what it did before privatization), yet provide poorer quality service and less of it. You can't provide the same level and quality of service for the same price *and* show a 40% profit margin at the same time, something has to give.
At the same time you had what amounts to a hostile take over and liquidation of the major private industries. The shipyards are closed, SAAB and Volvo sold overseas, Findus sold, Ericsson sold, etc. and many others.
Denmark, has had it's share of the above, too. But to add to the problem, there have been a few major incidents of extreme graft among some politicians and then the ongoing clean up from the graft.
If you want to tie this back into the discussion, F/OSS projects by nature allow competition in a service economy. MS and some other closed, proprietary systems more closely resemble the dreadful Soviet style monoliths where the great Chairman (e.g. Chairman Bill) or the great poitburo (e.g. share holders or board of directors) steer with an iron hand.
Read some history and some newspapers, especially the older newspapers from last century -- they're on microfiche or online at your library.
I visit quite a few libraries that have excellent ratios. My favorite one has only 5 (all linux, no thin client), but since it's for a small village and the usage is spread evenly through the day, that's usually enough. On the other hand, I've seen libraries for large cities with only 5 or 6 terminals and you often have to book a week in advance for a 30 minute session. I've also seen a few libraries with more than 70 - 100 public terminals in the cities.
Now by available to you mean physically present or by actually up-and-running? Some friends' libraries had stations present, but usually a good percentage were down at any given time with blue screens or such. Wiping MS and replacing it with Mandrake or Debian or Fedora gave more uptime (== better service) and reduced maintenance staff loads (== better service) and reduced stress on regular staff (== better service).
Several libraries I visit have a large number of public terminals. Some even have some semi-public (members only or students only etc). Most have legacy hardware, either their own from when the Windows NT/2k sickness spread or else from donations or dumpster diving. The latter usually choose to run linux tuned for the old hardware. The former usually end up running linux when they find that MS-Windows is too labor intensive to maintain and has a lot of down time. One site wiped MS-Windows from 70 public terminals and replaced it with a locally customized debian. Their MS-Windows geeks still have MS-Windows on some of the staff machines, but are starting to gumble at even that : their 70 linux machines require less maintenance (especially corrective) than 5 MS-Windows machines.
Anything that improves uptime and reduces the load on staff improves service. Anything else should be chucked.
W2K SP3, XP SP1 violate HIPAA. Don't believe me? Look at the EULA, it grants third party access to any and all data and programs.
Any and all hospitals or health care providers that knowingly use MS Windows are setting themselves up for either gross negligence or willful negligence lawsuits. Furthermore, on the technical side, for life-critical systems something stable like QNX would be best practice.
The U Toronto conference back in May on Open Source and Free Software covered many of these issues on the morning of the last day. Unfortunately, the medical session is not archived, but could probably be if there is enough interest.