You think they bother? That would require having either a valid return address or a legitimate account on the outgoing mail server. It's cheaper to just send mail to everyone--Just because there is nobody using an address now doesn't mean that there won't be next week.
The default configuration should be newbie-friendly, and should take into account that someone trying Linux for the first time is likely to be running it on a leftover computer. I'm OK with Mandrake's performance on a P500/384mb, but I also had the luxury of scrounging RAM out of two other computers--in their original life as corporate NT4 boxes, those computers had 128-196mb.
If Linux is significantly slower than the Win98/NT that was on that box, lots of people aren't going to bother with all the rest of the learning curve. I tried Linux 2 or 3 times before I finally kept it. Each time before, there was a different show-stopping problem that wouldn't let me retire my Windows box before I got sick of an over-crowded desk. Yes, there are solutions to all of those problems, but for most people sticking with Windows is the easiest solution of all.
That would involve actually physically touching MS products.
Actually, I'm fairly picky about the feel of my mouse and keyboard, and the MS optical wheelmice I've tried don't fit my hand well. And they don't make a Type M keyboard. For irony, I'll stick with using MSN only with Linux/Gaim.
No experience with Xandros, but years ago I installed Corel Linux. With the exception of the souncard (which gave other distributions trouble, too) it just worked. Connecting to a Windows Server network worked out of the box for a regular user, all I needed was the Windows domain, username and password. No chown, no editing fstab required.
If I didn't have a Mandrake box working already, I'd give Xandros a shot. OTOH, since it does so much for you, you might not learn as much.
It's not as dangerous to have a full reset button, because it's hard to do a hard reset on a router without people noticing. But a single click that enables a full admin account, with no effect on other users? No, thanks. Even the email idea is no good; the emailing functions require setup that most users don't bother with (I didn't, at least -- I don't have time for reading logs).
How quickly do you think someone will notice, especially where they leave the router in a public space? There will be a brief interruption of internet access, but since it will come back on it's own in 30-60 seconds, nobody is going to investigate much.
Most webmail use doesn't need to have antique messages, just the most recent few days. My mail client has an option to delete mail from the server a configureble time after the message was downloaded locally.
Some of the most anti-spam ISP's submitted their own dynamic ranges to the old MAPS DUL. Inclusion on dynamic or dial-up lists is only a sign that the ISP uses DHCP for it's customers. It is certainly not a sign that the ISP supports spammers.
While I could be wrong, I believe Infinity (the number 2 radio broadcaster) DID briefly ban the Dixie Chicks as a corporation. I remember hearing about this on NPR at the time. My brief Google search was inconclusive in the time I was willing to spend.
Yes. But taking a picture of the picture of the Mona Lisa in the framestore isn't shoplifting. It isn't necessarily right or legal, but it isn't shoplifting.
Sheesh. "I was able to do something similar, and a bunch of other stuff, therefore is perfect. If you had problems it's because you don't know what you are doing, it's all your fault."
I haven't had serious problems with Paypal, but getting a minor problem sorted out is far more difficult than necessary.
For years, I didn't have an active scanner, just ran a manual virus scan and spyware check periodically. My computer never had anything more serious than a tracking cookie, while I was forever cleaing spyware (and occasionally a virus) out of everyone else's computers.
Sometimes the "if you can't figure it out you don't deserve Linux" is actually "my system worked with the GUI install, but I didn't learn anything so I can't help you fix yours". There are a lot of very helpful people out there, but there are at least a few people who don't know much more than I do, and hide the lack with attitude.
...and one of the most useless. Variations of the double-bun hornless seat have been around for years. The horn is extremely important in controlling the bike.
A far better hardware solution to the problems "solved" by the hornless bike seat is the "crotchless" seat, with a strategically shaped hole or slot in the middle. Terry (a woman's bike company) first popularized these seats marketed towards women, but men liked them enough that Terry introduced a men's model with a different brand. Others have copied the basic design with varying success.
Another type I've had success with is the old-fashioned unpadded streched leather seat. Only moderatly comfortable at first, after a long ride they stay moderatly comfortable
Some good bike stores will let you test-ride saddles for a few days on your own bike.
In his alpha software he had to record a similar keyboard 30 times to get 80% accuracy. Off the top of my head I can think of all sorts of methods to improve this to the point where all you'll need is a long enough audio sample of the target keyboard. For instance, a library of known keyboard types, paying attention to the timing between keystrokes, figuring out which sounds are individual keys and treating that like a simple substitution code are all likely to increase accuracy greatly. (In fact timing will probably help distinguish the individual keysounds)
And it is a LOT easier and cheaper to hide a microphone or eavesdrop on an existing mic than it is to hide a camera with a useful field of view, and the data bandwidth required is far lower.
The USAF briefed enlisted airmen on the basic concept in the mid 80's, so the idea certainly isn't new.
"That, in a nutshell, is confirmed opt-in. It is the ONLY legitimate method of bulk E-mail advertising."
BS.
First of all, confirmed opt-in opens itself up to just as much spam as non-confirmed opt-in. You just wind up with a bunch of spam that starts "We have received a submission from someone claiming to be you to join our mailing list, 'Vicodin available at example.com'.
A genuine opt-in message shouldn't have advertising within the confirmation message, it should just say 'At 10:30am from IP signed up for the vicodin user's mailing list. Please click on this link or respond to this message to join the list"
In order to verify your email address for the opt-in list 'Vicodin available at example.com', you have to reply to this message.
Second of all, the only practical problem with unconfirmed opt-in is that it's your word against theirs whether or not you really opted in. Oh wait, that's true anyway. The only thing confirmed opt-in gives you is that people who don't know how confirmed opt-in works wind up not being able to get useful emails, and only get crappy spam rather than the emails they want.
The other thing you get is that if you DO get complaints, you can pull out their confirmation mail, complete with headers to show that they did sign up. You could forge the confirmation messages, but forging their ISP's headers will be more difficult.
We've tried confirmed opt-in and the only results are that we have a bunch of people emailing us why they weren't added to our list.
With regular opt-in, we have gone for over a year without a single complaint. I think the redhat-list has more problems.
"If your company is not doing those exact steps, in that exact sequence, you're spamming. Period."
Yes. Period. Because _you_ say so. Obviously, I should always consult you on definitions of any words I use, because you are the only one with correct answers.
Actually, I probably wouldn't have a problem with you, as long as the lack of complaints is legit. I've heard is that a vanishingly small percentage complain, and fewer still complain to the right place.
Even if you are legit, without confirmation I won't have sympathy if you get in trouble with your ISP for some moron forge-subscribing your mailing list to addresses harvested from news.admin.net-abuse.email
"If you are spamming, please tell me which marketing firm you're with so I can place your IP address range(s) into my domain's 'Deny' list for the mail servers."
If you or your users ever receive email that they didn't want, and the issue is not resolved completely to your satisfaction, I encourage you to do this.
Think of it this way. Let's say someone signs you up for a list that you didn't want them to. In the case of confirmed opt-in, they will get one useless extra email. In the case of unconfirmed opt-in, they will get one potentially useful extra email that they only have to reply or click on to get removed.
Here is a problem--Many of the "reply to remove" or "click to remove" instructions are actually "click to add". I've proved this to my satisfaction experimentally: Got a spam in one account, "replied" to the remove address from a new, otherwise unused and non-guessable account. Result? The new account started getting spam. I can't tell the difference between scammers and mistakes.
Some of the remove links are dead, some want a password, some have other hoops.
In the case of confirmed opt-in you're wasting bandwidth sending junk (and the spammers are going to spam with the "verification" messages anyway), and in unconfirmed you actually get content. Either way is open to abuse by bad parties, but confirmed opt-in causes problems for some of the computer-challenged.
They need simple opt-out instructions in case someone changes their mind or gets forwarded or group mail.
Additionally, opt-out must be possible with nothing more than the original message, an email account and reasonable common sense.
Steps 1 and 2 in your version of opt-in can be done in different ways, but step 3 is absolutely critical. Somewhere is a woman who belongs to Weightwatchers, has a mortgage with Countrywide Mortgage company, likes online bingo and doesn't know the difference between her email address and mine. None of these companies follow either step 3 or email opt-out.
When I filled out Countrywide's web form saying "quit sending me mail, I don't have an account with you", they gave me her account number so I could reset "my" password and change "my" preferences. Duh.
No argument that the business-class Compaq's are considerably better than the consumer-grade machines. I've seen a lot more business-class Compaqs, and they still only account for about half of the list, while the consumer-grade boxes have all the business-class faults and more.
I've had worse experience with Compaq than HP, (but come to think of it, I've had much more Compaq experience, so that may account for it...) Bios setup on it's own hard drive partition? BIOS that won't let you do a normal OS install, tries to force you into using the recovery/restore disk (not included with the system, order from Compaq)? RAM soldered to the motherboard? Cable Select hard drives? IDE cables with only one drive connection? All features of Compaq that I haven't had the misfortune of finding on an HP, or for the most part anywhere else.
Compaq did so many obnoxious and stupid hardware things that even with the purchase by HP I'd still be wary of buying anything from them. However your comparison is kind of like saying "I wouldn't buy a Mercedes because my old Dodge wasn't a luxury car".
(for non-car-geeks, Mercedes parent company bought Dodge's parent a few years back)
5 very small cupboards? I build my own computer desks, and a reasonably well thought-out enclosure does a lot for sound, and at least with the antique systems I use doesn't cause overheating problems. Have lots of ventilation, but avoid direct sound paths and make sure reflected paths hit at least one soft surface.
Slashdot Mirror
You think they bother? That would require having either a valid return address or a legitimate account on the outgoing mail server. It's cheaper to just send mail to everyone--Just because there is nobody using an address now doesn't mean that there won't be next week.
The default configuration should be newbie-friendly, and should take into account that someone trying Linux for the first time is likely to be running it on a leftover computer. I'm OK with Mandrake's performance on a P500/384mb, but I also had the luxury of scrounging RAM out of two other computers--in their original life as corporate NT4 boxes, those computers had 128-196mb.
If Linux is significantly slower than the Win98/NT that was on that box, lots of people aren't going to bother with all the rest of the learning curve. I tried Linux 2 or 3 times before I finally kept it. Each time before, there was a different show-stopping problem that wouldn't let me retire my Windows box before I got sick of an over-crowded desk. Yes, there are solutions to all of those problems, but for most people sticking with Windows is the easiest solution of all.
That would involve actually physically touching MS products.
Actually, I'm fairly picky about the feel of my mouse and keyboard, and the MS optical wheelmice I've tried don't fit my hand well. And they don't make a Type M keyboard. For irony, I'll stick with using MSN only with Linux/Gaim.
I came really close to buying this card, just for the idea of running MS hardware in Linux.
No experience with Xandros, but years ago I installed Corel Linux. With the exception of the souncard (which gave other distributions trouble, too) it just worked. Connecting to a Windows Server network worked out of the box for a regular user, all I needed was the Windows domain, username and password. No chown, no editing fstab required.
If I didn't have a Mandrake box working already, I'd give Xandros a shot. OTOH, since it does so much for you, you might not learn as much.
It's not as dangerous to have a full reset button, because it's hard to do a hard reset on a router without people noticing. But a single click that enables a full admin account, with no effect on other users? No, thanks. Even the email idea is no good; the emailing functions require setup that most users don't bother with (I didn't, at least -- I don't have time for reading logs).
How quickly do you think someone will notice, especially where they leave the router in a public space? There will be a brief interruption of internet access, but since it will come back on it's own in 30-60 seconds, nobody is going to investigate much.
Most webmail use doesn't need to have antique messages, just the most recent few days. My mail client has an option to delete mail from the server a configureble time after the message was downloaded locally.
Some of the most anti-spam ISP's submitted their own dynamic ranges to the old MAPS DUL. Inclusion on dynamic or dial-up lists is only a sign that the ISP uses DHCP for it's customers. It is certainly not a sign that the ISP supports spammers.
While I could be wrong, I believe Infinity (the number 2 radio broadcaster) DID briefly ban the Dixie Chicks as a corporation. I remember hearing about this on NPR at the time. My brief Google search was inconclusive in the time I was willing to spend.
Not really--A penguin desktop theme appears more stable than fluffy clouds.
Yes. But taking a picture of the picture of the Mona Lisa in the framestore isn't shoplifting. It isn't necessarily right or legal, but it isn't shoplifting.
Sheesh. "I was able to do something similar, and a bunch of other stuff, therefore is perfect. If you had problems it's because you don't know what you are doing, it's all your fault."
I haven't had serious problems with Paypal, but getting a minor problem sorted out is far more difficult than necessary.
For years, I didn't have an active scanner, just ran a manual virus scan and spyware check periodically. My computer never had anything more serious than a tracking cookie, while I was forever cleaing spyware (and occasionally a virus) out of everyone else's computers.
Sometimes the "if you can't figure it out you don't deserve Linux" is actually "my system worked with the GUI install, but I didn't learn anything so I can't help you fix yours". There are a lot of very helpful people out there, but there are at least a few people who don't know much more than I do, and hide the lack with attitude.
...and one of the most useless. Variations of the double-bun hornless seat have been around for years. The horn is extremely important in controlling the bike.
A far better hardware solution to the problems "solved" by the hornless bike seat is the "crotchless" seat, with a strategically shaped hole or slot in the middle. Terry (a woman's bike company) first popularized these seats marketed towards women, but men liked them enough that Terry introduced a men's model with a different brand. Others have copied the basic design with varying success.
Another type I've had success with is the old-fashioned unpadded streched leather seat. Only moderatly comfortable at first, after a long ride they stay moderatly comfortable
Some good bike stores will let you test-ride saddles for a few days on your own bike.
In his alpha software he had to record a similar keyboard 30 times to get 80% accuracy. Off the top of my head I can think of all sorts of methods to improve this to the point where all you'll need is a long enough audio sample of the target keyboard. For instance, a library of known keyboard types, paying attention to the timing between keystrokes, figuring out which sounds are individual keys and treating that like a simple substitution code are all likely to increase accuracy greatly. (In fact timing will probably help distinguish the individual keysounds)
And it is a LOT easier and cheaper to hide a microphone or eavesdrop on an existing mic than it is to hide a camera with a useful field of view, and the data bandwidth required is far lower.
The USAF briefed enlisted airmen on the basic concept in the mid 80's, so the idea certainly isn't new.
A genuine opt-in message shouldn't have advertising within the confirmation message, it should just say 'At 10:30am from IP signed up for the vicodin user's mailing list. Please click on this link or respond to this message to join the list"
The other thing you get is that if you DO get complaints, you can pull out their confirmation mail, complete with headers to show that they did sign up. You could forge the confirmation messages, but forging their ISP's headers will be more difficult.
Actually, I probably wouldn't have a problem with you, as long as the lack of complaints is legit. I've heard is that a vanishingly small percentage complain, and fewer still complain to the right place.
Even if you are legit, without confirmation I won't have sympathy if you get in trouble with your ISP for some moron forge-subscribing your mailing list to addresses harvested from news.admin.net-abuse.email
Here is a problem--Many of the "reply to remove" or "click to remove" instructions are actually "click to add". I've proved this to my satisfaction experimentally: Got a spam in one account, "replied" to the remove address from a new, otherwise unused and non-guessable account. Result? The new account started getting spam. I can't tell the difference between scammers and mistakes.
Some of the remove links are dead, some want a password, some have other hoops.
Confirmed opt
They need simple opt-out instructions in case someone changes their mind or gets forwarded or group mail.
Additionally, opt-out must be possible with nothing more than the original message, an email account and reasonable common sense.
Steps 1 and 2 in your version of opt-in can be done in different ways, but step 3 is absolutely critical. Somewhere is a woman who belongs to Weightwatchers, has a mortgage with Countrywide Mortgage company, likes online bingo and doesn't know the difference between her email address and mine. None of these companies follow either step 3 or email opt-out.
When I filled out Countrywide's web form saying "quit sending me mail, I don't have an account with you", they gave me her account number so I could reset "my" password and change "my" preferences. Duh.
IIRC, the "not for BK competitor" is for the free version, the paid version has no such restrictions.
No argument that the business-class Compaq's are considerably better than the consumer-grade machines. I've seen a lot more business-class Compaqs, and they still only account for about half of the list, while the consumer-grade boxes have all the business-class faults and more.
I've had worse experience with Compaq than HP, (but come to think of it, I've had much more Compaq experience, so that may account for it...) Bios setup on it's own hard drive partition? BIOS that won't let you do a normal OS install, tries to force you into using the recovery/restore disk (not included with the system, order from Compaq)? RAM soldered to the motherboard? Cable Select hard drives? IDE cables with only one drive connection? All features of Compaq that I haven't had the misfortune of finding on an HP, or for the most part anywhere else.
Compaq did so many obnoxious and stupid hardware things that even with the purchase by HP I'd still be wary of buying anything from them. However your comparison is kind of like saying "I wouldn't buy a Mercedes because my old Dodge wasn't a luxury car".
(for non-car-geeks, Mercedes parent company bought Dodge's parent a few years back)
Since we all know nobody at Microsoft would ever lie about something, that certainly proves the quote is entirely false. Glad that's clear.
5 very small cupboards? I build my own computer desks, and a reasonably well thought-out enclosure does a lot for sound, and at least with the antique systems I use doesn't cause overheating problems. Have lots of ventilation, but avoid direct sound paths and make sure reflected paths hit at least one soft surface.
What's the difference in coding a licensed DVD player and coding an unlicensed DVD player?
Oh.