Most jobs are dull and boring but are required to keep society going. How interesting is it to drive around in a truck and pick up rubbish? Drive the same bus every day? Clean freaking toilets?
Want geekier: How many coding jobs are pure maintenance and incorporate support? How many engineering jobs do you get where you're able to work on a space probe or an airplane? How many jobs in medicine are research positions, and how many of those are more than just lab work?
Most jobs are tedious. To do something great and interesting and original you have to put in a huge amount of time and effort. You have to be in the right place at the right time and be a better bet for the manager that hires you. Often what suffers is personal/social/family life.
Tell kids the truth. It's all out there for you but you have to do something more than the guy next to you to achieve something spectacular. Do this in a positive way and they may just skip some of the arrogance of being young and thinking the world will change at their whim. Some of them will want it bad enough that they will be great. Others will realise that the life they build around family and "normal" social lives aren't just a waste of life.
This guy would try to tell an 18 year old there's still a Santa.
Nice, but much better would be to add to whitelist when you send an outgoing email. To prevent that being hijacked, make the whitelist visible and editable. In other words, if I've sent you an email, you have permission to talk back to me. It doesn't have to be a reply to an original email. (What if the user doesn't hit reply to for whatever reason).
Yes the spammers could forge email addresses, but it would have to be one of those you specifically whitelisted and since each set of whitelisted addresses would be different, the best spammers could do is use common names in the hope that someone has a matching email address in the whitelist.
Only thing this doesn't solve is if the user sends from a different mail account. For example I write to support@someisp.com and brianjonestechguy@someisp.com replies.
So you start FF and it has a small memory foot print. Try actually USING it then look at the footprint again. I have screen shots of it taking 500Mb after half a day of intensive browsing then being left running overnight. Killed Firefox and the computer which had slowed to a crawl came back to life. Not the first or last time it happened, not even unusual. I usually kill FF twice a day at least now. As for whether or not it's plugins I haven't tested, but there should be a way to limit the memory available to plugins anyway.
FF was the bomb and then the team got wind of this and dropped the ball. I've had no end of trouble with it and only really continue to use it for a handful of features not available on IE (tabbed browsing and a couple of those pesky plugins mostly).
You apparently *don't* know what you're talking about. And US law *is* superior in the sense that it doesn't allow such things, but neither was my point at the time.
You know saying something is so doesn't make it true. That seems to be your whole mode of argument. State something as if it were fact. Don't qualify it. Insist you know what you're talking about and that the other person doesn't. Frankly it makes you look incapable of arguing a point.
I do know what I'm talking about and I just provided evidence that I do. As for US law (or anything else) being superior (which absolutely was your point) don't get me started. You're providing proof of just one thing - your own arrogance.
I said nothing specifically of any particular article or code of law. I just said it was a requirement to get property releases if you're using images of someone's property - and backed that up by showing that stock photography houses require it. As I've said in other posts they wouldn't be excluding images that could make them money if there wasn't anything to this.
What's more I don't believe it's just privacy law that's involved here. Take another look at the links I provided. It's about deriving profit from someone else's property.
Can you provide a link to IP law, and not some "property release"?
No. I'm not an IP lawyer. However if every large stock house on the planet requires property releases I'd think there's something to it. These people make their money from the photos they sell. They're not exactly looking for reasons to exclude good pictures.
I was trying to make people aware that there were issues here that the average/.er doesn't seem to know about. If you want to be difficult go ahead, just don't expect me to care or to go digging up evidence for you.
No, in fact I'm not even sure that's true. It's certainly not an aspect of US copyright law.
His words. He basically shot down what I said without backing it up. By using the word "certainly" not only is what he is saying false but he's implying I'm either a fool who doesn't know what he's on about or a liar because supposedly I've said something false.
He goes on: . If you can point me to the part of the US Code which covers it I'd appreciate it. Or maybe you're thinking of Australian law.
Given that he's just said it's certainly no aspect of US copyright law, he then sarcastically invites me to provide evidence, which he's sure I can't produce.
Not content he goes on: Why don't you ask him yourself? I'd say he probably didn't. But I also don't think this image was taken in Australia.
Again implying i don't know what I'm talking about and that I'm obviously mistaking law in my neck of the woods for US law (again implying US law is superior because it doesn't allow such things)
Dictinary.com defines arrogant as: "Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others: an arrogant contempt for the weak"
I think that fits perfectly. If you don't that's fine but don't whine to me about it.
Nice opinions. Care to back them up with some reasoning?
Possible reasoning: 1. It might take away from sales of calendars the zoo would otherwise make. Counterpoint: What if you sold in a different market?
2. You might somehow harm the zoo's reputation with bad photos etc. Counterpoint: Why not allow people to submit photos for inclusion in their calendars. (I enquired about this, and they'll only use their own pro photographers no matter how good the shot).
The IP law is a joke. I'm certainly not going to spend the day taking photos only to be so restricted in their use that I can only show friends and family that come over, or possibly put them up on a personal web page (IF that site isn't visited too often). The zoo doesn't get use of the photos. I don't get use of the photos. I also don't partonize the zoo. Typical of IP law.
I suppose calling someone a yobbo is considered polite where you're from.
No, in fact I'm not even sure that's true. It's certainly not an aspect of US copyright law.
This was absolutely blantantly false. He was basically telling me I'm an idiot that got it wrong because I don't live in the US and where I'm from the laws are obviously inferior.
How is it polite to call someone a liar without checking the facts?
Typical BS on/. - you're not even sure if that's right and you're certainly not an expert - so go ahead and slam someone who is, even if you haven't checked your facts. What's more imply that the other person's country is inferior to your wonderful USA and perpetuate the stereotype of the arrogant obnoxious American, who doesn't know a thing.
These laws and principles of law aren't an Australian exclusive. Here are some articles so perhaps you can get a clue before you type sarcastic drivel - it isn't my job to educate you:
Look under "property release". Note that pets and livestock are included.
Most stock photography libraries (who onsell images to clients based on demand) REQUIRE a property and/or model release. Otherwise it can cost them large amounts in legal action.
A little less abbrasive arrogance would do you a world of good.
Did you know that video or photography taken on private property or of private property requires the permission of the owner before you can exhibit them?
Do you think the owner got permission from Disney to put this up on Wikimedia? I know when I tried to get permission to use photos from Sydney's Taronga Zoo in Australia I was shot down in flames and told they'd persue anyone violating their IP vigorously.
I had some awesome shots I wanted to make a calendar from. I'm digusted and haven't visited the zoon since. I don't agree with this law at all, but it is the way it is.
I got the impression they wouldn't go after someone putting the pictures on a web page, but I'm sure if they found their way into a public library like wikimedia. I'm sure other places are the same. I've enquired and National Parks and Wildlife here in Australia are the same. They require you to take out public liability insurance and pay ridiculous rates to film commercially (read anything where you might sell it or put it in a library). Similarly the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority has rules and regulations about filming and requires licenses for commerical use of shots of the harbour.
Frankly, I think organisations world wide like to shoot themselves in the foot when they get protective of their IP. The system is so damn broken I wish it would just go away. I use to spend whole days shooting at zoos. Now I very rarely bother since I know I can just show friends and that's it. I thought about doing some pro photography on the side, but realised that if I ever sold a picture I could be locked out of shooting for myself privately in a number of places. Who loses out? Me? Sure. But also the damn companies who insist on hoarding their IP, and who I no longer bother to patronize.
The right to privacy is recognised as a fundamental right by the United Nations which the United States is bound by, and which it ignores whenever this causes an inconvenience.
When you speak please ensure what you're saying comes out of the correct orafice please.
As is the inconveniencing. How it is inconveniencing somebody to ensure this person has access to both environments at the same time?
For 2 machines totally independent you need double the desk space. Nice if you have a large desk and can spare it. Not so nice if you're cramped. Where I work now I have 1 machine and 3 monitors and though I have a fair bit of space I wish I had more. I've worked on a much more cramped desk with 3 machines and three monitors. Not a lot of fun if you want to discuss something on hard copy, or diagram something.
And even if it was inconvenient, the minimal distress caused has to be contrasted with the security issue of not patching boxes timely. And you know what? I would be damned to let a bit of inconveniencing get on the way of the security of my organization.
You have to secure your organisation so that it isn't disrupted. If you disrupt your organisation to do it you're the cure that's worse than the disease.
2 machines are not twice the admin time, one dual boot machine may be, but two machines aligned to supported configurations are a non issue from the administrative point of view: once you have a solution that escalates to 50 machines (or 100, 100, or 10000), adding one more machine adds no burden.
Two machines equals twice the cost of hardware, twice the admin keeping track of them as physical assets, twice the chance of components failing. Twice as many components failing over the life of the machines. There's disadvantages to running dual boot too so it's a TRADE OFF. Neither solution is fundamentally better than the other. It depends on the user's work and the situation.
See the fact that you don't understand that there's more to it than your job of securing the damn machines shows how little you understand your overall role in the organisation. Frankly it makes you look like a horse's rear when you say such obviously purile things.
So it is 3 strikes, you are out matey.
What's baseball got to do with it? Take your ball and your bat and go home "matey".
Anyway I'm glad I don't have to deal with an alpha geek like you for a sysadmin.
People. Get a grip. Most companies will comply with government subponeas. Don't get your hopes too high that Google will hold it's ground either. In fact I think they're playing with fire.
The ONLY way to protect against this sort of information being used by law enforcement is to never collect it in the first place. Only collect statistical obfuscated data and you won't have these problems - how valid and accurate your statistics based on aggregate data will be is another matter though.
So to make your job easier, you're happy to inconvenience your users and cost your company money? Yes it might be a PITA. Guess what, that's why you get paid. If your users have a genuine need for a dual boot system, you should be supporting it. It's not some strange alien configuration that you couldn't possibly know about. How will you ever cope if your users get VMWare?
As other users have pointed out 2 machines = twice the cost and twice the admin, and as a user there's a good case for not booting up the one you're not using at the time, so you'll still get out of date updates.
Thank $!@# you're not my sysadmin. (And you should thank !@$% I'm not your boss either!)
You're wrong and Myth busters is awful because it MIS-INFORMS. It would be okay if they didn't present the show as science based. But they abuse the scientific method like there's no tomorrow then the mass of people that watch the "entertainment" and no no better think this is how you do science. Loose controls. Generalisations based on testing 1 specific case etc. You end up with a more arrogant and stupid general public who think they know what science is, when really all they know is how to make special effects that go boom (which is what the show's hosts' backgrounds are in anyway).
*sarcasm* Please bring back flight simulators with stick figure planes, and one dimensional games that could be mastered in an afternoon.
Also please bring back the golden age of radio. All those damn moving pictures get in the way of me using my imagination to visualise the story.
In fact take away the nasty computers. I want to hand draw every frame of the game myself. *end sarcasm*
I'll stick to Flight Simulator 9 until I get more movement and better sound in Flight Simulator X. You can go back to playing pong if you like, but leave me my improving graphics.
Your assumption that I'm unfamiliar with Linux is just wrong. I've installed and run Linux on numerous occassions. The gotchas each time with each new distro, especially when things go wrong and you're stuck hand editing XConfigs, dealing with a new version of PAM locking you out until you change to a hideous password, are stuck hand writing rules to facilitate connection to your ISP etc. (all actual experiences I've had).
The Linux package managers are all mediocre. You have to be aware that one thing will break another, that this library is incompatible with that etc.
When is the last time your wife installed a major new piece of software on her system? Did she get you to do it or did she do it herself? How often does she do this? What does your wife actually use the system for? Email, web browsing and the occassional openoffice document is my guess. Perhaps instant messaging too? Maybe a little graphics editing ala gimp if she's adventurous? I'd guess that's about it. Answer these questions if you want to retain any credibility.
My problem is that my experience with Windows has been awful but in the end I've been able to do what I wanted to with the system. With Linux I've installed a lot of distros each with their own intriciate problems that in the end have just been broken for the things I wanted to do. You can argue all you like that this is due to my own lack of sysadmin skills and I'll agree with you. I don't want to keep up with the latest and greatest.
With XP I learnt about a handful of utils (most GUI driven so you don't have to be familiar with 100 command line options) - I know the control panel well. I know a handful of network utils, and a handful of disk utils. Oh yes I do run a good piece of antivirus software, and a firewall. (The only pain comes when I install new hardware - my last graphics card was hell to install and it's still not quite right but that's either NVidia drivers or my motherboard and/or graphics card are faulty - I'm still not sure which).
These days I only run Linux when there's a good reason. If I'm fiddling with astronomy analytic software that only runs on Unix variants for example. Occassionally I might try out a distro on an emulator like VMWARE if I've got access to one.
Under windows I'm always installing and uninstalling software. I've played with flight sims, games, music and video editing software, and plenty of development tools. I do much more than browse and edit word docs, and there's always something new to explore.
I simply *love* being called a liar for sharing being stupid enough to share personal information on Slashdot, thank you for reminding me of this fact.
Oh a pity party??? And I'm invited? Fantastic!
Lets see what brought this on: She's either doing nothing more than reading email and surfing the web (with the occassional card game thrown in for good measure) or you're flat out lying.
I said either blah or you're a liar and you took this to mean I called you a liar. A little touchy are we?
If you use a computer system you need to administer it. The only systems that don't require this are ones that do the same simple things day in and day out (retrieve email, display web pages etc). If you're generating new data you need to keep it sorted and organised. If you're adding new software you have to install, upgrade and if there's a problem solve it. That's just a fact. There's not a system on the planet let alone a desktop OS that administers itself, so stop peddling that fairytale.
Hmmm, so you're telling me your wife who couldn't reinstall the OS on her own and who chooses an OS based on how pretty it is hasn't needed your help with her system in 2 years.
She's either doing nothing more than reading email and surfing the web (with the occassional card game thrown in for good measure) or you're flat out lying.
If she was doing more she'd have come across a word document whose layout your office sweet had stuffed up, an excel spreadsheet with a macro it couldn't render or something else like that. You're not going to try to tell me she's admining the firewall herself or upgrading any secure components. Or are you going with the myth that Linux is impervious to attacks and security threats???
I'd love to....absolutely LOVE to go Linux only. When I can run my flight sims, chess software (and I'm not talking Winboard here!), open up my work documents without the formatting going to hell, not have to worry about the next upgrade installing draconian password security by default (that incident was fun. PAM with ridiculous security for my 'lil old home PC) etc. Then I may just think of ditching Windows.
The worm has turned. Firefox and Thunderbird are just not what they use to be. I've had more trouble with later versions of Firefox 1.0.x and 1.5 than I've had with any other application lately.
I simply don't trust what's coming out of the teams anymore. They've lost the plot. I'll stay with versions I know work for as long as I can without f'ing up any semblance of security I have.
A challenge for you: Put your wife in front of your precious Unix/Linux boxen. Put the equvialent applications on those boxes and let her run loose with them. Give her the same connectivity. Oh and don't forget she gets to be admin too. Lets see how stable they are in a month.
See that's the problem. Narrow minded people like you that have managed to get a box stable for their own needs and automatically assume that if everyone else can't do the same for their purposes it must be because they've chosen an inferior OS.
If Linux were so stable as you describe AND did everything people wanted to do with windows (WITHOUT requiring a computer science degree to administer), just how long do you think it'd be considered a geek's OS? People aren't using Windows because they're all morons. They're using Windows because despite its flaws it does what they require more than other operating systems. That doesn't mean I love the damn system but I'd sooner ask a non-computer person to hang off a cliff by a piece of sewing thread than suggest they switch to Linux to resolve all their problems.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes and it's got a fancy name. It's called War On Terror: Operation Iraqi Freedom. Or WoTOIF for short.
Most jobs are dull and boring but are required to keep society going. How interesting is it to drive around in a truck and pick up rubbish? Drive the same bus every day? Clean freaking toilets?
Want geekier: How many coding jobs are pure maintenance and incorporate support? How many engineering jobs do you get where you're able to work on a space probe or an airplane? How many jobs in medicine are research positions, and how many of those are more than just lab work?
Most jobs are tedious. To do something great and interesting and original you have to put in a huge amount of time and effort. You have to be in the right place at the right time and be a better bet for the manager that hires you. Often what suffers is personal/social/family life.
Tell kids the truth. It's all out there for you but you have to do something more than the guy next to you to achieve something spectacular. Do this in a positive way and they may just skip some of the arrogance of being young and thinking the world will change at their whim. Some of them will want it bad enough that they will be great. Others will realise that the life they build around family and "normal" social lives aren't just a waste of life.
This guy would try to tell an 18 year old there's still a Santa.
Nice, but much better would be to add to whitelist when you send an outgoing email. To prevent that being hijacked, make the whitelist visible and editable. In other words, if I've sent you an email, you have permission to talk back to me. It doesn't have to be a reply to an original email. (What if the user doesn't hit reply to for whatever reason).
Yes the spammers could forge email addresses, but it would have to be one of those you specifically whitelisted and since each set of whitelisted addresses would be different, the best spammers could do is use common names in the hope that someone has a matching email address in the whitelist.
Only thing this doesn't solve is if the user sends from a different mail account. For example I write to support@someisp.com and brianjonestechguy@someisp.com replies.
So you start FF and it has a small memory foot print. Try actually USING it then look at the footprint again. I have screen shots of it taking 500Mb after half a day of intensive browsing then being left running overnight. Killed Firefox and the computer which had slowed to a crawl came back to life. Not the first or last time it happened, not even unusual. I usually kill FF twice a day at least now. As for whether or not it's plugins I haven't tested, but there should be a way to limit the memory available to plugins anyway.
FF was the bomb and then the team got wind of this and dropped the ball. I've had no end of trouble with it and only really continue to use it for a handful of features not available on IE (tabbed browsing and a couple of those pesky plugins mostly).
You apparently *don't* know what you're talking about. And US law *is* superior in the sense that it doesn't allow such things, but neither was my point at the time.
You know saying something is so doesn't make it true. That seems to be your whole mode of argument. State something as if it were fact. Don't qualify it. Insist you know what you're talking about and that the other person doesn't. Frankly it makes you look incapable of arguing a point.
I do know what I'm talking about and I just provided evidence that I do. As for US law (or anything else) being superior (which absolutely was your point) don't get me started. You're providing proof of just one thing - your own arrogance.
I said nothing specifically of any particular article or code of law. I just said it was a requirement to get property releases if you're using images of someone's property - and backed that up by showing that stock photography houses require it. As I've said in other posts they wouldn't be excluding images that could make them money if there wasn't anything to this.
What's more I don't believe it's just privacy law that's involved here. Take another look at the links I provided. It's about deriving profit from someone else's property.
Can you provide a link to IP law, and not some "property release"?
/.er doesn't seem to know about. If you want to be difficult go ahead, just don't expect me to care or to go digging up evidence for you.
No. I'm not an IP lawyer. However if every large stock house on the planet requires property releases I'd think there's something to it. These people make their money from the photos they sell. They're not exactly looking for reasons to exclude good pictures.
I was trying to make people aware that there were issues here that the average
No, in fact I'm not even sure that's true. It's certainly not an aspect of US copyright law.
His words.
He basically shot down what I said without backing it up. By using the word "certainly" not only is what he is saying false but he's implying I'm either a fool who doesn't know what he's on about or a liar because supposedly I've said something false.
He goes on:
. If you can point me to the part of the US Code which covers it I'd appreciate it.
Or maybe you're thinking of Australian law.
Given that he's just said it's certainly no aspect of US copyright law, he then sarcastically invites me to provide evidence, which he's sure I can't produce.
Not content he goes on:
Why don't you ask him yourself? I'd say he probably didn't. But I also don't think this image was taken in Australia.
Again implying i don't know what I'm talking about and that I'm obviously mistaking law in my neck of the woods for US law (again implying US law is superior because it doesn't allow such things)
Dictinary.com defines arrogant as:
"Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others: an arrogant contempt for the weak"
I think that fits perfectly. If you don't that's fine but don't whine to me about it.
Nice opinions. Care to back them up with some reasoning?
Possible reasoning:
1. It might take away from sales of calendars the zoo would otherwise make.
Counterpoint: What if you sold in a different market?
2. You might somehow harm the zoo's reputation with bad photos etc.
Counterpoint: Why not allow people to submit photos for inclusion in their calendars. (I enquired about this, and they'll only use their own pro photographers no matter how good the shot).
The IP law is a joke. I'm certainly not going to spend the day taking photos only to be so restricted in their use that I can only show friends and family that come over, or possibly put them up on a personal web page (IF that site isn't visited too often). The zoo doesn't get use of the photos. I don't get use of the photos. I also don't partonize the zoo. Typical of IP law.
I suppose calling someone a yobbo is considered polite where you're from.
No, in fact I'm not even sure that's true. It's certainly not an aspect of US copyright law.
This was absolutely blantantly false. He was basically telling me I'm an idiot that got it wrong because I don't live in the US and where I'm from the laws are obviously inferior.
How is it polite to call someone a liar without checking the facts?
I suggest you get a clue.
Typical BS on /. - you're not even sure if that's right and you're certainly not an expert - so go ahead and slam someone who is, even if you haven't checked your facts. What's more imply that the other person's country is inferior to your wonderful USA and perpetuate the stereotype of the arrogant obnoxious American, who doesn't know a thing.
a sesr tyrelease.aspP ropertyRel.php
These laws and principles of law aren't an Australian exclusive. Here are some articles so perhaps you can get a clue before you type sarcastic drivel - it isn't my job to educate you:
Look under "property release". Note that pets and livestock are included.
http://www.shutterpoint.com/Help-Selling.cfm#rele
http://www.indexstock.com/content/help/modelprope
http://www.asmp.org/commerce/legal/releases/About
Most stock photography libraries (who onsell images to clients based on demand) REQUIRE a property and/or model release. Otherwise it can cost them large amounts in legal action.
A little less abbrasive arrogance would do you a world of good.
Did you know that video or photography taken on private property or of private property requires the permission of the owner before you can exhibit them?
o modoensis2.jpg
Have a look at this - one of a collection taken at Disney's Animal Kingdom:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Varanus_k
Do you think the owner got permission from Disney to put this up on Wikimedia? I know when I tried to get permission to use photos from Sydney's Taronga Zoo in Australia I was shot down in flames and told they'd persue anyone violating their IP vigorously.
I had some awesome shots I wanted to make a calendar from. I'm digusted and haven't visited the zoon since. I don't agree with this law at all, but it is the way it is.
I got the impression they wouldn't go after someone putting the pictures on a web page, but I'm sure if they found their way into a public library like wikimedia. I'm sure other places are the same. I've enquired and National Parks and Wildlife here in Australia are the same. They require you to take out public liability insurance and pay ridiculous rates to film commercially (read anything where you might sell it or put it in a library). Similarly the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority has rules and regulations about filming and requires licenses for commerical use of shots of the harbour.
Frankly, I think organisations world wide like to shoot themselves in the foot when they get protective of their IP. The system is so damn broken I wish it would just go away. I use to spend whole days shooting at zoos. Now I very rarely bother since I know I can just show friends and that's it. I thought about doing some pro photography on the side, but realised that if I ever sold a picture I could be locked out of shooting for myself privately in a number of places. Who loses out? Me? Sure. But also the damn companies who insist on hoarding their IP, and who I no longer bother to patronize.
Responding as if you were someone else using A/C is juvenile.
The right to privacy is recognised as a fundamental right by the United Nations which the United States is bound by, and which it ignores whenever this causes an inconvenience.
When you speak please ensure what you're saying comes out of the correct orafice please.
As is the inconveniencing. How it is inconveniencing somebody to ensure this person has access to both environments at the same time?
For 2 machines totally independent you need double the desk space. Nice if you have a large desk and can spare it. Not so nice if you're cramped. Where I work now I have 1 machine and 3 monitors and though I have a fair bit of space I wish I had more. I've worked on a much more cramped desk with 3 machines and three monitors. Not a lot of fun if you want to discuss something on hard copy, or diagram something.
And even if it was inconvenient, the minimal distress caused has to be contrasted with the security issue of not patching boxes timely. And you know what? I would be damned to let a bit of inconveniencing get on the way of the security of my organization.
You have to secure your organisation so that it isn't disrupted. If you disrupt your organisation to do it you're the cure that's worse than the disease.
2 machines are not twice the admin time, one dual boot machine may be, but two machines aligned to supported configurations are a non issue from the administrative point of view: once you have a solution that escalates to 50 machines (or 100, 100, or 10000), adding one more machine adds no burden.
Two machines equals twice the cost of hardware, twice the admin keeping track of them as physical assets, twice the chance of components failing. Twice as many components failing over the life of the machines. There's disadvantages to running dual boot too so it's a TRADE OFF. Neither solution is fundamentally better than the other. It depends on the user's work and the situation.
See the fact that you don't understand that there's more to it than your job of securing the damn machines shows how little you understand your overall role in the organisation. Frankly it makes you look like a horse's rear when you say such obviously purile things.
So it is 3 strikes, you are out matey.
What's baseball got to do with it? Take your ball and your bat and go home "matey".
Anyway I'm glad I don't have to deal with an alpha geek like you for a sysadmin.
Just because you might lose, or even if you know you will lose, doesn't mean you give up before the fight.
Tell that to everyone that settles with the RIAA.
It costs money to fight a legal fight.
Um, it wasn't a subpoena, it was a request
And how quickly will a subpoena be obtained if they deny the request?
People. Get a grip. Most companies will comply with government subponeas. Don't get your hopes too high that Google will hold it's ground either. In fact I think they're playing with fire.
The ONLY way to protect against this sort of information being used by law enforcement is to never collect it in the first place. Only collect statistical obfuscated data and you won't have these problems - how valid and accurate your statistics based on aggregate data will be is another matter though.
So to make your job easier, you're happy to inconvenience your users and cost your company money? Yes it might be a PITA. Guess what, that's why you get paid. If your users have a genuine need for a dual boot system, you should be supporting it. It's not some strange alien configuration that you couldn't possibly know about. How will you ever cope if your users get VMWare?
As other users have pointed out 2 machines = twice the cost and twice the admin, and as a user there's a good case for not booting up the one you're not using at the time, so you'll still get out of date updates.
Thank $!@# you're not my sysadmin. (And you should thank !@$% I'm not your boss either!)
You're wrong and Myth busters is awful because it MIS-INFORMS. It would be okay if they didn't present the show as science based. But they abuse the scientific method like there's no tomorrow then the mass of people that watch the "entertainment" and no no better think this is how you do science. Loose controls. Generalisations based on testing 1 specific case etc. You end up with a more arrogant and stupid general public who think they know what science is, when really all they know is how to make special effects that go boom (which is what the show's hosts' backgrounds are in anyway).
*sarcasm*
Please bring back flight simulators with stick figure planes, and one dimensional games that could be mastered in an afternoon.
Also please bring back the golden age of radio. All those damn moving pictures get in the way of me using my imagination to visualise the story.
In fact take away the nasty computers. I want to hand draw every frame of the game myself.
*end sarcasm*
I'll stick to Flight Simulator 9 until I get more movement and better sound in Flight Simulator X. You can go back to playing pong if you like, but leave me my improving graphics.
Your assumption that I'm unfamiliar with Linux is just wrong. I've installed and run Linux on numerous occassions. The gotchas each time with each new distro, especially when things go wrong and you're stuck hand editing XConfigs, dealing with a new version of PAM locking you out until you change to a hideous password, are stuck hand writing rules to facilitate connection to your ISP etc. (all actual experiences I've had).
The Linux package managers are all mediocre. You have to be aware that one thing will break another, that this library is incompatible with that etc.
When is the last time your wife installed a major new piece of software on her system? Did she get you to do it or did she do it herself? How often does she do this? What does your wife actually use the system for? Email, web browsing and the occassional openoffice document is my guess. Perhaps instant messaging too? Maybe a little graphics editing ala gimp if she's adventurous? I'd guess that's about it. Answer these questions if you want to retain any credibility.
My problem is that my experience with Windows has been awful but in the end I've been able to do what I wanted to with the system. With Linux I've installed a lot of distros each with their own intriciate problems that in the end have just been broken for the things I wanted to do. You can argue all you like that this is due to my own lack of sysadmin skills and I'll agree with you. I don't want to keep up with the latest and greatest.
With XP I learnt about a handful of utils (most GUI driven so you don't have to be familiar with 100 command line options) - I know the control panel well. I know a handful of network utils, and a handful of disk utils. Oh yes I do run a good piece of antivirus software, and a firewall. (The only pain comes when I install new hardware - my last graphics card was hell to install and it's still not quite right but that's either NVidia drivers or my motherboard and/or graphics card are faulty - I'm still not sure which).
These days I only run Linux when there's a good reason. If I'm fiddling with astronomy analytic software that only runs on Unix variants for example. Occassionally I might try out a distro on an emulator like VMWARE if I've got access to one.
Under windows I'm always installing and uninstalling software. I've played with flight sims, games, music and video editing software, and plenty of development tools. I do much more than browse and edit word docs, and there's always something new to explore.
I simply *love* being called a liar for sharing being stupid enough to share personal information on Slashdot, thank you for reminding me of this fact.
Oh a pity party??? And I'm invited? Fantastic!
Lets see what brought this on:
She's either doing nothing more than reading email and surfing the web (with the occassional card game thrown in for good measure) or you're flat out lying.
I said either blah or you're a liar and you took this to mean I called you a liar. A little touchy are we?
If you use a computer system you need to administer it. The only systems that don't require this are ones that do the same simple things day in and day out (retrieve email, display web pages etc). If you're generating new data you need to keep it sorted and organised. If you're adding new software you have to install, upgrade and if there's a problem solve it. That's just a fact. There's not a system on the planet let alone a desktop OS that administers itself, so stop peddling that fairytale.
Hmmm, so you're telling me your wife who couldn't reinstall the OS on her own and who chooses an OS based on how pretty it is hasn't needed your help with her system in 2 years.
She's either doing nothing more than reading email and surfing the web (with the occassional card game thrown in for good measure) or you're flat out lying.
If she was doing more she'd have come across a word document whose layout your office sweet had stuffed up, an excel spreadsheet with a macro it couldn't render or something else like that. You're not going to try to tell me she's admining the firewall herself or upgrading any secure components. Or are you going with the myth that Linux is impervious to attacks and security threats???
I'd love to....absolutely LOVE to go Linux only. When I can run my flight sims, chess software (and I'm not talking Winboard here!), open up my work documents without the formatting going to hell, not have to worry about the next upgrade installing draconian password security by default (that incident was fun. PAM with ridiculous security for my 'lil old home PC) etc. Then I may just think of ditching Windows.
The worm has turned. Firefox and Thunderbird are just not what they use to be. I've had more trouble with later versions of Firefox 1.0.x and 1.5 than I've had with any other application lately.
I simply don't trust what's coming out of the teams anymore. They've lost the plot. I'll stay with versions I know work for as long as I can without f'ing up any semblance of security I have.
A challenge for you: Put your wife in front of your precious Unix/Linux boxen. Put the equvialent applications on those boxes and let her run loose with them. Give her the same connectivity. Oh and don't forget she gets to be admin too. Lets see how stable they are in a month.
See that's the problem. Narrow minded people like you that have managed to get a box stable for their own needs and automatically assume that if everyone else can't do the same for their purposes it must be because they've chosen an inferior OS.
If Linux were so stable as you describe AND did everything people wanted to do with windows (WITHOUT requiring a computer science degree to administer), just how long do you think it'd be considered a geek's OS? People aren't using Windows because they're all morons. They're using Windows because despite its flaws it does what they require more than other operating systems. That doesn't mean I love the damn system but I'd sooner ask a non-computer person to hang off a cliff by a piece of sewing thread than suggest they switch to Linux to resolve all their problems.