What is needed is a law that forces companies dealing with bank and finantial details (banks, credit card companies, card processors, insurance companies, finance companies, ATM providers, EFTPOS/credit card processing machine providers and so on) to take greater efforts to keep it secure, much like HIPPA mandates high security for medical records.
Essentialy it would mandate things like "any device or software that holds on to any finantial data after it is no longer required to process whatever transaction the data was given for is illegal" and "All devices storing or transporting or moving finantial data must use encryption" (for example, any US website taking banking details, finantial details or credit card details must use SSL or similar to encrypt the data as it goes over the internet) as well as requiring (for example) banks to do more to make it harder for phishing sites to fool users into plugging in their password (there are certainly solutions out there so its not like its not possible for the banks to do it, they just dont because it would cost too much to fix it).
Also this law should have bigger penalties for companies who dont protect this data and it gets copied as a result (much like how there are penatlies if medical data is copied)
And if so, will we need Windows Extra DRM edition (aka Windows Vista) or will we see Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players available for current operating systems?
Isnt this file a copyright violation (or does it count as fair use). If its not fair use, CBS should sue parentstv.org for hosting it. (however, if CBS decided to do that, parentstv might use the lawsuit to say "CBS doesnt want you to know about the filth that is being broadcast on our TV screens" or something)
Its also the reason the US doesnt like the EU Galileo GPS sattelite network. The US doesnt like it when nations like the UK, canada, australia, france, germany, japan and other "allied" nations develop military technology that it has absolutly no control over and has no qualms about using its muscle to try to prevent such technology from getting off the ground.
If you have good border-level security (firewalls etc) that block nasty stuff before it even gets in, the fact that Windows, IE and IIS are insecure doesnt matter.
The other thing is, this is the military. They are probobly more worried about some soldier emailing information that would make the military look bad (e.g. the abu ghrab photos) to a media organization than they are about joe random hacker getting into the network containing office PCs used by pilots to read slashdot. Anything classified would be on another network with much greater security.
If you think the US has anything like a standard, you clearly dont know anything about mobile telephony...
Firstly, there are the providers using GSM (most of which are on bands different to the bands seen in europe, australia etc) Secondly, there are the providers on CDMA (like verizon) each of which has their own phones and wont let you use any other phone on the network. Then you have providers rolling out things like UMTS (aka 3G) which is yet another standard. Not to mention the propriatory motorola developed IDEN standard used by Nextel (now Sprint Nextel). And there are still people out there using the AMPS analog system. Here in australia, its pretty simple by comparison. Most people are on GSM with a big push to rollout UMTS. Then, there are CDMA networks that were installed to reach the few % of the population GSM cant easily reach but those are disappearing now. AMPS is completly gone.
Do what I do and buy munchies at the supermarket next to the theater before you go in. Of course, if the theater you go to is nowhere near shops with cheap munchies or is one of those ones that wont let you take outside munchies in (even though its the exact same packet of chips as is on the candybar only cheaper), my solution doesnt apply:)
I LOVE my visa debit card. It is very usefull to be able to buy things from places that only accept credit cards (such as online shops) but using my money instead of the banks money.
1.Cat5 UTP everywhere for data 2.Coax cable everywhere for entertainment (video/audio/etc) 3.Phone cables for those places where you want telephones (VOIP just isnt quite here yet in.au) 4.Conduits for everything so you can replace it later (e.g. when it becomes cost effective to run 1000baseFX or something) 5.Automatic locks with keyfobs everywhere so that the house is as secure as it can possibly be. One press of the keyfob would unlock the front door, the front deadbolt AND the front screen door (the kind with those extra deadbolts). Once inside, one press of the keyfob would lock all 3 locks again so that burglers cant get in. 6.As many gadgets to help keep the house clean as possible (robot vaccuum cleaner, steam mop, robot lawn-mower etc) 7.Nice fast internet connection for sucking down large downloads 8.Good burglar alarm (with smoke detectors etc) 9.Storage area to put the linux box I keep meaning to obtain and setup 10.Dedicated room for my LEGO building 11.Home theater room (and kit) to watch DVDs on 12.Everything possible to save energy
Why is it so hard to find a builder that will actually put cables like networking and audio-visual in as part of the plan? If you want it done, generally its very difficult to get the builder to let you do it plus the builder can/will ruin your work later. I want a house where networking and audio-visual cabling has been drawn into the plans alongside the power and water and where its installed as part of the construction
There is already a perfectly good system of ratings. What is needed is greater policing of the ratings. Sure, its not actually illegal to allow minors into R-rated movies but cinema owners dont generally do it (because of what the movie studios would do to them and because of the threat of legal enforcement)
I still dont understand why companies dont like telecommuting. In the modern world of email, instant-messaging as well as things like VOIP/voice chat and video confrencing, there is no reason that you couldnt have, say, developers working from home. No need to spend money even on cubes or open-plan office space.
Have meeting rooms for those times when a face-to-face meeting is the only way to get things done and other alternatives wont work.
Management can see how much work is being done by looking at how much code employees commit to the reository. Or by looking at how many of their assigned bugs or features or tasks they complete and sign off on (including how long it takes them to do each one).
Advantages of working from home as I see it: 1.No need to commute to work (saves money and time as well as saving the environment) 2.Saves the company money in that they dont need to spend as much on cubes/offices/space, electricity etc etc etc. 3.Allows workers to work a little more flexibly (in that as long as they are working the right number of hours, they dont necessarily need to be 9-5 mon-fri). Want to go to the movies? Work late other nights that week and take friday afternoon off. Living with school-age kids? Start work when they are off at school, work through until they come home, then do stuff with the kids until bed-time and spend a couple hours working after the kids are in bed to make up for the hours you didnt work in the afternoon. Need to go to the bank to sort something out? Go to the bank and make up the work later that day. 4.Allows workers to work in what they might consider a better environment (Want to have your music playing? No problems. Dont want to wear a tie? No problems.)
The answer is not to put each program into its own folder... The answer is for each program to register everything it needs (non-shared program files, shared program files, registry keys etc etc) in a central database. Then, an inteligent uninstaller can remove the program. When the last program claiming "I need this file" is removed, the file is removed. Combine this with a decent way to prevent "dll hell" (i.e. any new release of a dll that is not backwards compatible with old releases gets a new filename etc like unix has had since day one or so) and most of the problems go away. Any program that installs itself can never install a dll that will break other programs (since it can only ever install a dll that is the same as what is already there or one that is newer but still backwards compatible with what is already there) and it would be simple to uninstall.
Patches, upgrades, expansion packs, addons, mods and service packs would either be things that install stand-alone and dont touch the main program (in which case they get seperate uninstall entries) or they modify the install entry for the host program (e.g. patches simply update the host program install entry)
Also, this system would allow for dependancies so that one program can be dependant on another program. For example, you wouldnt be able to uninstal "microsoft office" while "Voice Recognition 2000 for microsoft office" (say) is still installed and dependant on microsoft office for its functionality.
And, this could be used to provide a simple way to backup configuration data (every item registered would be marked with a flag indicating if it was something that should be backed up as part of the configuration data or not)
Going to the example of Starforce protection, every game that uses it registers that it needs the starforce drivers and dlls. When you uninstall the last game that needs it, the drivers would be removed.
Here in australia, in order to get a bank account which included a Visa Debit card (like a visa card but with my own money), I had to show various pieces of ID. If I wanted to get an account or credit card at any other bank, I would probobly need to show the same.
Also, when the card arrived, I was unable to use it until I went into a branch and had it activated (again showing at least one piece of ID IIRC)
It should not be possible to get a credit card, bank account etc without showing suitable forms of ID (e.g. birth certificate, passport, drivers licence or other things that cant easily be copied or stolen)
This is especially true if (as is likely the case) the department involved is using specific software (e.g. the science dept might have scientific or math software that they use).
Allowing the department to manage it means that the guys who know the most about how to keep Matlab or LabView or whatever they are using running are the guys keeping them running.
Isnt it far better for the employer to have an employee decide not to cary out an illegal action (e.g. stealing from the workplace, vising inappropriate websites etc) becase they know they are being watched than for the employee to cary out the action and get caught on a secret camera?
If you have the right cameras in the right place, you dont need to worry that the employee will somehow incapacitate the cameras or cary out actions when the camera is not pointing at them.
The new functionality in Vista offers nothing games companies need. Short of microsoft dropping support for DirectX 9.x (or crippling it to the point where it is unusable), there is little reason for games companies to switch to using DirectX 10. Games companies will test on vista and support it but the minumum requirements for games wont change (just look at all the games companies still supporting Wincrap 95/98/ME...)
Maybe they should just publish the specs for the Lotus Notes data formats and network protocols and let the linux community build "notes for linux"... Does anyone actually buy Notes anymore that doesnt already have it entrenched into their network anyway?
They should ship a CD with their machines instead of just a recovery partition (or if the few dollars it would cost to press a cd is to expensive, make it something you can select to get).
Such a CD would be a real windows installer and not just something that wipes your entire hard disk and lays down a standard partition. (better yet, make it do both, one option wipes the entire disk and lays down the standard dell partition, the other "expert" mode lets you manually pick partitions to erase and reuse but could still lay down the standard dell windows install without the user needing to do anything)
Plus, how about shipping machines without all that preloaded junk and preloading something USEFULL (e.g. getting a deal with an anti-virus vendor to include a 12 month subscription with all new Dells or shipping a usable anti-spyware application)
There is no reason Dell cant continue to chase the corporate $$$ (heck, the machine I have here at work is a Dell) AND commit to using suppliers who provide linux drivers or specs.
Name one class of hardware where the cost of shipping only hardware that has linux drivers would be more expensive than what they ship now.
Examples of what to ship that has linux support: Intel processors, motherboards and chipsets (even the intel WiFi chips have some level of linux suport now I believe) Nvidia graphics cards (for the machines that need more than intel integrated graphics) Intel network cards (including wireless cards) all of which (last I looked) have linux support Hard drives and optical drives are all standard I believe.
And, for the rare cases where linux supported hardware is non-existant (do any Dell machines still ship with internal winmodems?), Dell can go to all the manufacturers and promise to standardize on the first manufacturer who aggrees to publish specs for their hardware to enable linux support.
If you want to teach procedural programming, forget C. Teach Pascal. Sure, no-one actually uses it for anything serious but if you start with Pascal, you can teach procedural basics in a nice easy manor. Then you can move up and teach object pascal (or move to something else) to give them OOP skills.
Who was it that said that teaching BASIC would ruin perfectly good programmersd for life?
Slashdot Mirror
What is needed is a law that forces companies dealing with bank and finantial details (banks, credit card companies, card processors, insurance companies, finance companies, ATM providers, EFTPOS/credit card processing machine providers and so on) to take greater efforts to keep it secure, much like HIPPA mandates high security for medical records.
Essentialy it would mandate things like "any device or software that holds on to any finantial data after it is no longer required to process whatever transaction the data was given for is illegal" and "All devices storing or transporting or moving finantial data must use encryption" (for example, any US website taking banking details, finantial details or credit card details must use SSL or similar to encrypt the data as it goes over the internet) as well as requiring (for example) banks to do more to make it harder for phishing sites to fool users into plugging in their password (there are certainly solutions out there so its not like its not possible for the banks to do it, they just dont because it would cost too much to fix it).
Also this law should have bigger penalties for companies who dont protect this data and it gets copied as a result (much like how there are penatlies if medical data is copied)
And if so, will we need Windows Extra DRM edition (aka Windows Vista) or will we see Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players available for current operating systems?
Isnt this file a copyright violation (or does it count as fair use).
If its not fair use, CBS should sue parentstv.org for hosting it. (however, if CBS decided to do that, parentstv might use the lawsuit to say "CBS doesnt want you to know about the filth that is being broadcast on our TV screens" or something)
Its also the reason the US doesnt like the EU Galileo GPS sattelite network.
The US doesnt like it when nations like the UK, canada, australia, france, germany, japan and other "allied" nations develop military technology that it has absolutly no control over and has no qualms about using its muscle to try to prevent such technology from getting off the ground.
Yeah and I heard that Hell has just spent up big on ice making machines too :)
Both the computer I have at home and the one I have at work dont even HAVE floppy disk drives.
If you have good border-level security (firewalls etc) that block nasty stuff before it even gets in, the fact that Windows, IE and IIS are insecure doesnt matter.
The other thing is, this is the military.
They are probobly more worried about some soldier emailing information that would make the military look bad (e.g. the abu ghrab photos) to a media organization than they are about joe random hacker getting into the network containing office PCs used by pilots to read slashdot. Anything classified would be on another network with much greater security.
If you think the US has anything like a standard, you clearly dont know anything about mobile telephony...
Firstly, there are the providers using GSM (most of which are on bands different to the bands seen in europe, australia etc)
Secondly, there are the providers on CDMA (like verizon) each of which has their own phones and wont let you use any other phone on the network.
Then you have providers rolling out things like UMTS (aka 3G) which is yet another standard.
Not to mention the propriatory motorola developed IDEN standard used by Nextel (now Sprint Nextel). And there are still people out there using the AMPS analog system.
Here in australia, its pretty simple by comparison.
Most people are on GSM with a big push to rollout UMTS.
Then, there are CDMA networks that were installed to reach the few % of the population GSM cant easily reach but those are disappearing now.
AMPS is completly gone.
Do what I do and buy munchies at the supermarket next to the theater before you go in. Of course, if the theater you go to is nowhere near shops with cheap munchies or is one of those ones that wont let you take outside munchies in (even though its the exact same packet of chips as is on the candybar only cheaper), my solution doesnt apply :)
I LOVE my visa debit card.
It is very usefull to be able to buy things from places that only accept credit cards (such as online shops) but using my money instead of the banks money.
1.Cat5 UTP everywhere for data .au)
2.Coax cable everywhere for entertainment (video/audio/etc)
3.Phone cables for those places where you want telephones (VOIP just isnt quite here yet in
4.Conduits for everything so you can replace it later (e.g. when it becomes cost effective to run 1000baseFX or something)
5.Automatic locks with keyfobs everywhere so that the house is as secure as it can possibly be. One press of the keyfob would unlock the front door, the front deadbolt AND the front screen door (the kind with those extra deadbolts). Once inside, one press of the keyfob would lock all 3 locks again so that burglers cant get in.
6.As many gadgets to help keep the house clean as possible (robot vaccuum cleaner, steam mop, robot lawn-mower etc)
7.Nice fast internet connection for sucking down large downloads
8.Good burglar alarm (with smoke detectors etc)
9.Storage area to put the linux box I keep meaning to obtain and setup
10.Dedicated room for my LEGO building
11.Home theater room (and kit) to watch DVDs on
12.Everything possible to save energy
Why is it so hard to find a builder that will actually put cables like networking and audio-visual in as part of the plan? If you want it done, generally its very difficult to get the builder to let you do it plus the builder can/will ruin your work later. I want a house where networking and audio-visual cabling has been drawn into the plans alongside the power and water and where its installed as part of the construction
What exactly is the EU asking microsoft to provide?
There is already a perfectly good system of ratings.
What is needed is greater policing of the ratings. Sure, its not actually illegal to allow minors into R-rated movies but cinema owners dont generally do it (because of what the movie studios would do to them and because of the threat of legal enforcement)
I still dont understand why companies dont like telecommuting.
In the modern world of email, instant-messaging as well as things like VOIP/voice chat and video confrencing, there is no reason that you couldnt have, say, developers working from home.
No need to spend money even on cubes or open-plan office space.
Have meeting rooms for those times when a face-to-face meeting is the only way to get things done and other alternatives wont work.
Management can see how much work is being done by looking at how much code employees commit to the reository. Or by looking at how many of their assigned bugs or features or tasks they complete and sign off on (including how long it takes them to do each one).
Advantages of working from home as I see it:
1.No need to commute to work (saves money and time as well as saving the environment)
2.Saves the company money in that they dont need to spend as much on cubes/offices/space, electricity etc etc etc.
3.Allows workers to work a little more flexibly (in that as long as they are working the right number of hours, they dont necessarily need to be 9-5 mon-fri). Want to go to the movies? Work late other nights that week and take friday afternoon off.
Living with school-age kids? Start work when they are off at school, work through until they come home, then do stuff with the kids until bed-time and spend a couple hours working after the kids are in bed to make up for the hours you didnt work in the afternoon.
Need to go to the bank to sort something out? Go to the bank and make up the work later that day.
4.Allows workers to work in what they might consider a better environment (Want to have your music playing? No problems. Dont want to wear a tie? No problems.)
The answer is not to put each program into its own folder...
The answer is for each program to register everything it needs (non-shared program files, shared program files, registry keys etc etc) in a central database.
Then, an inteligent uninstaller can remove the program.
When the last program claiming "I need this file" is removed, the file is removed.
Combine this with a decent way to prevent "dll hell" (i.e. any new release of a dll that is not backwards compatible with old releases gets a new filename etc like unix has had since day one or so) and most of the problems go away.
Any program that installs itself can never install a dll that will break other programs (since it can only ever install a dll that is the same as what is already there or one that is newer but still backwards compatible with what is already there) and it would be simple to uninstall.
Patches, upgrades, expansion packs, addons, mods and service packs would either be things that install stand-alone and dont touch the main program (in which case they get seperate uninstall entries) or they modify the install entry for the host program (e.g. patches simply update the host program install entry)
Also, this system would allow for dependancies so that one program can be dependant on another program. For example, you wouldnt be able to uninstal "microsoft office" while "Voice Recognition 2000 for microsoft office" (say) is still installed and dependant on microsoft office for its functionality.
And, this could be used to provide a simple way to backup configuration data (every item registered would be marked with a flag indicating if it was something that should be backed up as part of the configuration data or not)
Going to the example of Starforce protection, every game that uses it registers that it needs the starforce drivers and dlls.
When you uninstall the last game that needs it, the drivers would be removed.
Here in australia, in order to get a bank account which included a Visa Debit card (like a visa card but with my own money), I had to show various pieces of ID. If I wanted to get an account or credit card at any other bank, I would probobly need to show the same.
Also, when the card arrived, I was unable to use it until I went into a branch and had it activated (again showing at least one piece of ID IIRC)
It should not be possible to get a credit card, bank account etc without showing suitable forms of ID (e.g. birth certificate, passport, drivers licence or other things that cant easily be copied or stolen)
This is especially true if (as is likely the case) the department involved is using specific software (e.g. the science dept might have scientific or math software that they use).
Allowing the department to manage it means that the guys who know the most about how to keep Matlab or LabView or whatever they are using running are the guys keeping them running.
Isnt it far better for the employer to have an employee decide not to cary out an illegal action (e.g. stealing from the workplace, vising inappropriate websites etc) becase they know they are being watched than for the employee to cary out the action and get caught on a secret camera?
If you have the right cameras in the right place, you dont need to worry that the employee will somehow incapacitate the cameras or cary out actions when the camera is not pointing at them.
The new functionality in Vista offers nothing games companies need.
Short of microsoft dropping support for DirectX 9.x (or crippling it to the point where it is unusable), there is little reason for games companies to switch to using DirectX 10.
Games companies will test on vista and support it but the minumum requirements for games wont change (just look at all the games companies still supporting Wincrap 95/98/ME...)
Maybe they should just publish the specs for the Lotus Notes data formats and network protocols and let the linux community build "notes for linux"...
Does anyone actually buy Notes anymore that doesnt already have it entrenched into their network anyway?
They should ship a CD with their machines instead of just a recovery partition (or if the few dollars it would cost to press a cd is to expensive, make it something you can select to get).
Such a CD would be a real windows installer and not just something that wipes your entire hard disk and lays down a standard partition. (better yet, make it do both, one option wipes the entire disk and lays down the standard dell partition, the other "expert" mode lets you manually pick partitions to erase and reuse but could still lay down the standard dell windows install without the user needing to do anything)
Plus, how about shipping machines without all that preloaded junk and preloading something USEFULL (e.g. getting a deal with an anti-virus vendor to include a 12 month subscription with all new Dells or shipping a usable anti-spyware application)
There is no reason Dell cant continue to chase the corporate $$$ (heck, the machine I have here at work is a Dell) AND commit to using suppliers who provide linux drivers or specs.
Name one class of hardware where the cost of shipping only hardware that has linux drivers would be more expensive than what they ship now.
Examples of what to ship that has linux support:
Intel processors, motherboards and chipsets (even the intel WiFi chips have some level of linux suport now I believe)
Nvidia graphics cards (for the machines that need more than intel integrated graphics)
Intel network cards (including wireless cards) all of which (last I looked) have linux support
Hard drives and optical drives are all standard I believe.
And, for the rare cases where linux supported hardware is non-existant (do any Dell machines still ship with internal winmodems?), Dell can go to all the manufacturers and promise to standardize on the first manufacturer who aggrees to publish specs for their hardware to enable linux support.
No, I dont believe the marketing hype.
I believe all the people (here and elsewhere) who say that coverage is the one thing keeping them on Verizon.
That statement clearly only applies to people experiencing Basic as their first language.
:)
My first language was Turbo Pascal (version 6) and I have also had exposure to Visual Basic. I have no problem writing C, C++ and others
If you want to teach procedural programming, forget C.
Teach Pascal. Sure, no-one actually uses it for anything serious but if you start with Pascal, you can teach procedural basics in a nice easy manor. Then you can move up and teach object pascal (or move to something else) to give them OOP skills.
Who was it that said that teaching BASIC would ruin perfectly good programmersd for life?