Actually, I think that change would be a Good Thing.
99.9% of what you call "consumer internet connections" have NO reason to run an MTA ever. If you do have a reason for running an MTA or other server-type service -- get a host! I use IX WebHosting -- nice plans starting at $4/month (IMAP and POP email, listserves, generous disk space and bandwidth, scripting support). I'm hosting my soon-to-launch business over there using their Unlimited Pro plan. Their $6.45/mo plan (mid-tier) includes MySQL and PostgreSQL accounts. I recommend checking them out: http://ixwebhosting.com/ They've treated me quite well.
It's a dirt cheap price to pay to keep the spambots from running off every insecure DSL and Cable "consumer internet connection" in the country. Yeah, it'll tick off folks that want to use their consumer connection as a server host -- but they're being ridiculously cheap with today's hosting costs being so low.
If you are using Linux on the desktop this works only if you don't allow the end user root access. Of course, the same can be said of Windows and Admin access.
If you are using it as a server, then you are right that the damage they can do is limited, but again the same is true of Windows.
For a single-user system, you can do a LOT of damage in Windows or Linux: neither the Registry or/etc is very forgiving of ignorance or carelessness.
Note that I am a big Linux fan for a LOT of reasons, both server- and client-side, but it is not a panacea, either.
I am NOT a fan of Microsoft, but I'll have to say that I think you're being unfair to them here.
Both the problems he called about were created by third-party software and/or his own errors. You can't really blame Microsoft, but Microsoft did manage to fix things for him for a flat fee each time. In one case, he foobarred his registry and in the other Norton foobarred it for him.
You are correct -- you shouldn't expect OEM support if a company is selling Windows to you as OEM when it is really retail, especially since you admit that they are "bending" the rules to do so. Buy it illegitimately and you don't get support!
The cool part of this is that they are providing the code so that you can use any of these on your own website -- not just "their space". Of course, by showing you the code it also makes it easy for you to modify to suit your needs.
As a developer I can appreciate having access to this.
I'm a sysadmin as well -- been working in IT for about 13 years.
Personally, I expect the field to continue to evolve in the direction of "operator" as time goes by. IT experts cost a company dearly without bringing in more sales. There is every incentive for companies and solutions providers to look for lower maintenance products (think of IBM's work on "self-healing" systems). Meanwhile, ever-improving bandwidth gives you better ways to outsource (not necessary offshore) you IT back room.
It's been a great ride, but as times change we can't sit around complaining like buggy-whip makers of old. Life is full of interesting opportunities, but you can't rest on what you have already mastered if you want to succeed -- you have to keep learning and going after the next opportunity.
Unlike you, I like programming if I like the project. However, I DON'T want to produce a product for someone else which they can then make all the money from! I'm still working in IT, but my wife and I also just filed to incorporate our first business. You have to keep moving!
So if I own my company which I start from scratch and build into a $20,000,000/year net profit business I shouldn't pay myself a couple of mil in salary?
Not that I'm likely to do so, but would that be objectionable? I'm not cheating the stockholders if I am the stockholders...
Great point! My number two and three favorite shows right now are Lost and Invasion (in which order???), but my number one favorite:
Tiki Bar TV (available only online) http://tikibartv.com/
It's a 3-5 minute per episode series of homemade videos that mix humor with mixology (and the lovely Lala). Check out Red Oktober or Drinkbot (my faves).
The point? This is a VERY inexpensive little show that we (my wife and I and our friends) eagerly wait for the next episode with way more interest than the next actual television show of any type. It hits our particular mix of interests and humor perfectly.
I'd LIKE to buy one, but can't justify it at this point in my life. Like you, I'm part of the same demographic. First "video" game I played was a boxing game IN TEXT on a mainframe in the late 70's. My first computer was my Apple//c...
So now I'm late thirties, own my own home (which we recently gutted and had remodeled), am happily married, have a 10-year old daughter, and am trying to get a business of my own launched with my wife this summer.
Personally, I'd love a high-end cutting-edge console. However, while I could afford one (well, not this month...), I don't see spending this kind of money on it because what I DON'T have is enough time to play enough to justify that kind of cost. Maybe if that was my only hobby, but life's too short and interesting to spend that much of it inside a game.
I'll stick to a few games on my laptop. May not be cutting-edge gaming, but it's enough for an occasional distraction.
If it was encryption I would think Partition Magic and fdisk would just see it as a corrupt partition. I would expect I could still delete the partition even if I couldn't read it. It may simply be a coincidence...
After I installed the Vista beta I can no longer access my hard drive. Linux fdisk, Partition Magic: nothing will let me back in (can't even repartition!).
Can't get much more secure than that...
Seriously, though, the drive really is unreadable. Don't know if Vista managed to kill it (how?!?!) or if it's just a strange coincidence.
Yeah, if you want a look at their "unbiased journalism" just scan the articles on their "Environment" page. I especially like the unbiased viewpoint in the phrase "environmental fearmongers".
Your last sentence is correct and is, at the same time, the reason I think Vista is going to be a mess. The key word is "legacy".
If you want to shed many of the problems plaguing Windows you are going to have to stop tacking on old code for the sake of backwards compatibility. Apple has made major breaks with old software and then provided "bridge" software to help users over the hump (Classic to support pre-X apps, Rosetta to run pre-Intel binaries).
Unfortunately, it doesn't look to me like this is where Vista is going. Instead, Vista looks to me to be a complete rewrite that includes tacking on huge amounts of old junk to keep everyone's old apps happy WITHOUT need for a compatibility-mode environment.
Makes me very nervous that we are facing an even more bloated OS with lots of baggage from previous versions thrown in. As a sysadmin, I sure hope I'm wrong...
You sound as if you are equating "legal" with "ethical". It's very possible to be scrupulously legal and profoundly unethical simultaneously.
It may be legal and highly profitable to move your manufacturing to locations where you don't have to follow what here would be considered minimum standards for ethical behavior. It *is* a way to "evade" our standards legally, but not ethically. No matter where you have your factory, you are still acting unethically if workplace conditions are unsafe or your workers are being mistreated regardless of the legality of what you are doing.
That said, I also have to comment that the article (a) fails to substantiate their claims well, and (b) singles out Apple simply because it's a better headline. I have Dells full of Foxconn cables, and the Wired article names several more manufacturers that use Foxconn.
"Trust me, cleaning the computer is by a magnitude faster."
No. It's not.
Once you have any serious malware infection you have NO IDEA what system binaries may have been replaced by the malware or how many backdoors you have on your system. That's what rootkits are all about. If the malware let someone have access to your system you can't trust anything the computer tells you until you fdisk, format and reinstall from scratch.
First, a DNS lookup is made to discover the IP address of someserver.com. Next, ping uses that information to transmit information directly to the someserver.com server, including the IP address of the sender so that the server at someserver.com can respond. Finally, someserver.com sends a reply directly back to the sender's IP address.
Jefferson warned us there would be patents like this one...
I think the truth (as it often does) lies between the extremes of "no help" and "support". Hussein received limited support from the US as the Iran/Iraq war went on, primarily in the form of loans and a willingness to not look too hard at the Iraqi use of chemical weapons. The time represented a "thaw" in US-Iraqi relations with direct visits from Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of President Reagan.
If you are interested in a good overview of US/Iraqi relations during the Iran/Iraq war, check our the National Security Archive at GWU:
And I whole heartily encourage all patent and IP lawyers to go to those black holes and ether Subpoena them or deliver a notice of possible infringement.
Hey, this is relativity, and relativity proves that there is no ether!
I certainly fall in this category. My side business (doing web development) needs to periodically run compatibility testing (mostly IE). I was looking to buy a CHEAP PC to handle this, but now I'll just buy a new Intel Mac and reboot to Windows when I must.
I expect that the ability to run Windows or Windows Apps inside OS X is not far behind, so I expect the need to reboot is temporary.
I don't want to watch a crappy compressed version of a film in ANY case. Pirated downloads don't come close to the quality of a DVD. I won't watch the little blurry thing with lousy sound. The entertainment value isn't worth the time it takes to watch it.
I think there are plenty of movies that I end up never seeing because of the lag time between theater release and DVD release. I don't want to spend $20 for tickets (3 in my family) plus $20 for snacks just to put up with all the theater distractions mentioned previously for a movie that I'm not DYING to see. Once three months have gone by before the DVD is out and the buzz is gone I generally find my interest in the film has waned as well. However, if I could get it around the same time as it opens in the theater for $15 or $20 you bet I'd buy it!
Very few people would switch to pirated downloads who were previously paying hand over fist to see the film in the theater. The huge majority would just start buying the DVD instead, and would likely spend more on movies than they did previously.
Once again, we have the Slashdot spin to deal with
How is this Slashdot spin? When I click through to the article, the quote is the FIRST LINE of the article and the 60% figure is even in the title!
Why wouldn't it be a scramble? If Vista really is 50 million lines of code, that's a rewrite of 30 million lines. How long did it take to write that 50 million to begin with? You do the math: how long would it take to rewrite 30 million? Remember, though, Vista is to ship to corporate customers later THIS year. Yeah, I'd say "scrambling" would be accurate!
Slashdot Mirror
No, a basic account is free.
Actually, I think that change would be a Good Thing.
99.9% of what you call "consumer internet connections" have NO reason to run an MTA ever. If you do have a reason for running an MTA or other server-type service -- get a host! I use IX WebHosting -- nice plans starting at $4/month (IMAP and POP email, listserves, generous disk space and bandwidth, scripting support). I'm hosting my soon-to-launch business over there using their Unlimited Pro plan. Their $6.45/mo plan (mid-tier) includes MySQL and PostgreSQL accounts. I recommend checking them out: http://ixwebhosting.com/ They've treated me quite well.
It's a dirt cheap price to pay to keep the spambots from running off every insecure DSL and Cable "consumer internet connection" in the country. Yeah, it'll tick off folks that want to use their consumer connection as a server host -- but they're being ridiculously cheap with today's hosting costs being so low.
If you are using Linux on the desktop this works only if you don't allow the end user root access. Of course, the same can be said of Windows and Admin access.
/etc is very forgiving of ignorance or carelessness.
If you are using it as a server, then you are right that the damage they can do is limited, but again the same is true of Windows.
For a single-user system, you can do a LOT of damage in Windows or Linux: neither the Registry or
Note that I am a big Linux fan for a LOT of reasons, both server- and client-side, but it is not a panacea, either.
I am NOT a fan of Microsoft, but I'll have to say that I think you're being unfair to them here.
Both the problems he called about were created by third-party software and/or his own errors. You can't really blame Microsoft, but Microsoft did manage to fix things for him for a flat fee each time. In one case, he foobarred his registry and in the other Norton foobarred it for him.
Personally, I think he got a deal.
You are correct -- you shouldn't expect OEM support if a company is selling Windows to you as OEM when it is really retail, especially since you admit that they are "bending" the rules to do so. Buy it illegitimately and you don't get support!
Could be... but doesn't have to be.
The cool part of this is that they are providing the code so that you can use any of these on your own website -- not just "their space". Of course, by showing you the code it also makes it easy for you to modify to suit your needs.
As a developer I can appreciate having access to this.
I'm a sysadmin as well -- been working in IT for about 13 years.
Personally, I expect the field to continue to evolve in the direction of "operator" as time goes by. IT experts cost a company dearly without bringing in more sales. There is every incentive for companies and solutions providers to look for lower maintenance products (think of IBM's work on "self-healing" systems). Meanwhile, ever-improving bandwidth gives you better ways to outsource (not necessary offshore) you IT back room.
It's been a great ride, but as times change we can't sit around complaining like buggy-whip makers of old. Life is full of interesting opportunities, but you can't rest on what you have already mastered if you want to succeed -- you have to keep learning and going after the next opportunity.
Unlike you, I like programming if I like the project. However, I DON'T want to produce a product for someone else which they can then make all the money from! I'm still working in IT, but my wife and I also just filed to incorporate our first business. You have to keep moving!
So if I own my company which I start from scratch and build into a $20,000,000/year net profit business I shouldn't pay myself a couple of mil in salary?
Not that I'm likely to do so, but would that be objectionable? I'm not cheating the stockholders if I am the stockholders...
Great point! My number two and three favorite shows right now are Lost and Invasion (in which order???), but my number one favorite:
Tiki Bar TV (available only online) http://tikibartv.com/
It's a 3-5 minute per episode series of homemade videos that mix humor with mixology (and the lovely Lala). Check out Red Oktober or Drinkbot (my faves).
The point? This is a VERY inexpensive little show that we (my wife and I and our friends) eagerly wait for the next episode with way more interest than the next actual television show of any type. It hits our particular mix of interests and humor perfectly.
when we have draughts the Aedes mosquitoes will lay their eggs anywhere
When mosquitoes start laying egges IN MY BEER I'll know it's time to move.
I'd LIKE to buy one, but can't justify it at this point in my life. Like you, I'm part of the same demographic. First "video" game I played was a boxing game IN TEXT on a mainframe in the late 70's. My first computer was my Apple //c...
So now I'm late thirties, own my own home (which we recently gutted and had remodeled), am happily married, have a 10-year old daughter, and am trying to get a business of my own launched with my wife this summer.
Personally, I'd love a high-end cutting-edge console. However, while I could afford one (well, not this month...), I don't see spending this kind of money on it because what I DON'T have is enough time to play enough to justify that kind of cost. Maybe if that was my only hobby, but life's too short and interesting to spend that much of it inside a game.
I'll stick to a few games on my laptop. May not be cutting-edge gaming, but it's enough for an occasional distraction.
If it was encryption I would think Partition Magic and fdisk would just see it as a corrupt partition. I would expect I could still delete the partition even if I couldn't read it. It may simply be a coincidence...
After I installed the Vista beta I can no longer access my hard drive. Linux fdisk, Partition Magic: nothing will let me back in (can't even repartition!).
Can't get much more secure than that...
Seriously, though, the drive really is unreadable. Don't know if Vista managed to kill it (how?!?!) or if it's just a strange coincidence.
Yeah, if you want a look at their "unbiased journalism" just scan the articles on their "Environment" page. I especially like the unbiased viewpoint in the phrase "environmental fearmongers".
http://www.canadafreepress.com/environment.htm
Your last sentence is correct and is, at the same time, the reason I think Vista is going to be a mess. The key word is "legacy".
If you want to shed many of the problems plaguing Windows you are going to have to stop tacking on old code for the sake of backwards compatibility. Apple has made major breaks with old software and then provided "bridge" software to help users over the hump (Classic to support pre-X apps, Rosetta to run pre-Intel binaries).
Unfortunately, it doesn't look to me like this is where Vista is going. Instead, Vista looks to me to be a complete rewrite that includes tacking on huge amounts of old junk to keep everyone's old apps happy WITHOUT need for a compatibility-mode environment.
Makes me very nervous that we are facing an even more bloated OS with lots of baggage from previous versions thrown in. As a sysadmin, I sure hope I'm wrong...
You sound as if you are equating "legal" with "ethical". It's very possible to be scrupulously legal and profoundly unethical simultaneously.
It may be legal and highly profitable to move your manufacturing to locations where you don't have to follow what here would be considered minimum standards for ethical behavior. It *is* a way to "evade" our standards legally, but not ethically. No matter where you have your factory, you are still acting unethically if workplace conditions are unsafe or your workers are being mistreated regardless of the legality of what you are doing.
That said, I also have to comment that the article (a) fails to substantiate their claims well, and (b) singles out Apple simply because it's a better headline. I have Dells full of Foxconn cables, and the Wired article names several more manufacturers that use Foxconn.
"Trust me, cleaning the computer is by a magnitude faster."
No. It's not.
Once you have any serious malware infection you have NO IDEA what system binaries may have been replaced by the malware or how many backdoors you have on your system. That's what rootkits are all about. If the malware let someone have access to your system you can't trust anything the computer tells you until you fdisk, format and reinstall from scratch.
How about ping?
ping someserver.com
First, a DNS lookup is made to discover the IP address of someserver.com.
Next, ping uses that information to transmit information directly to the someserver.com server, including the IP address of the sender so that the server at someserver.com can respond.
Finally, someserver.com sends a reply directly back to the sender's IP address.
Jefferson warned us there would be patents like this one...
Better yet, he claims it has been running flawlessly for three weeks, but the screenshot he posted:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?page_id=65&page=19
indicates a system crash on 5/21.
I think the truth (as it often does) lies between the extremes of "no help" and "support". Hussein received limited support from the US as the Iran/Iraq war went on, primarily in the form of loans and a willingness to not look too hard at the Iraqi use of chemical weapons. The time represented a "thaw" in US-Iraqi relations with direct visits from Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of President Reagan.
If you are interested in a good overview of US/Iraqi relations during the Iran/Iraq war, check our the National Security Archive at GWU:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
Hey, this is relativity, and relativity proves that there is no ether!
I certainly fall in this category. My side business (doing web development) needs to periodically run compatibility testing (mostly IE). I was looking to buy a CHEAP PC to handle this, but now I'll just buy a new Intel Mac and reboot to Windows when I must.
I expect that the ability to run Windows or Windows Apps inside OS X is not far behind, so I expect the need to reboot is temporary.
I don't want to watch a crappy compressed version of a film in ANY case. Pirated downloads don't come close to the quality of a DVD. I won't watch the little blurry thing with lousy sound. The entertainment value isn't worth the time it takes to watch it.
I think there are plenty of movies that I end up never seeing because of the lag time between theater release and DVD release. I don't want to spend $20 for tickets (3 in my family) plus $20 for snacks just to put up with all the theater distractions mentioned previously for a movie that I'm not DYING to see. Once three months have gone by before the DVD is out and the buzz is gone I generally find my interest in the film has waned as well. However, if I could get it around the same time as it opens in the theater for $15 or $20 you bet I'd buy it!
Very few people would switch to pirated downloads who were previously paying hand over fist to see the film in the theater. The huge majority would just start buying the DVD instead, and would likely spend more on movies than they did previously.
Once again, we have the Slashdot spin to deal with
How is this Slashdot spin? When I click through to the article, the quote is the FIRST LINE of the article and the 60% figure is even in the title!
Why wouldn't it be a scramble? If Vista really is 50 million lines of code, that's a rewrite of 30 million lines. How long did it take to write that 50 million to begin with? You do the math: how long would it take to rewrite 30 million? Remember, though, Vista is to ship to corporate customers later THIS year. Yeah, I'd say "scrambling" would be accurate!
Yeah, I think this is exactly the case.
That said, if installing IE7 also keeps Windows Explorer from accessing the web, it is still a big step for security on XP.