While this advice works in a business environment, it simply isn't feasible for many home users. A knowledgeable technician with a PE disk has a reasonable chance to disable the hostile software, and then use up to date scan engines to remove remnants. If this approach is failing, at that point backing up personal data and reinstalling is wise, but it is still invasive and time consuming, so it is worth spending some time to try and avoid it.
I no longer care if he delivers what he promises. I'll assume now the answer is 'no'.
What he really needs to do is budget playtesting and post-playtesting development. Without this simple and important part if the development cycle, you end up with significant flaws in the final product. For Fable 1, you have the incessant and inane voice tips. Try to get your combat multiplier even *higher*! In Fable 2 you have the death mechanic, or should I say lack therof. It trivialized combat completely, making the game feel pointless.
Why was it profitable to create news outlets in traditional media from advertising money and not on the internet?
The bane of internet advertising is direct feedback. With print media, businesses would run advertising and simply hope it is working. They would renew their ads every week. In the internet age you get instant feedback on how successful it is.. number of page views, number of clicks. Poor performing ads get pulled quickly, providing less revenue.
We are at a time of transition. Many younger people consume their news entirely from the internet. While it isn't the whole population, it is growing at a very high rate. All we have to do is wait. When enough people are using the internet for their news, and enough advertisers realize that it is page hits and not clicks that matter, there will be plenty of revenue to be had producing quality news... probably even more revenue than before since the distribution costs are so much lower.
I'd recommend a simple oscillator project. You can use it to either flash two LEDs or create tones for a speaker. It covers the use of transistors, resistors, and capacitors. The cost should be very low, and the project can be put together without solder in several different ways. Here is one article with an example.
Interstate 76 was based on the Mechwarrior engine, and I still believe it's the best game ever made. With Mechwarrior free, is there a chance for an I76 revival? I waited from Autoduel to I76... don't make me wait that long again!
The reason you are steadily losing market share has less to do with the availability of reasonably good antivirus software for free, and more to do with the staggeringly awful quality of your own products. Norton Internet Security was so completely terrible, that not only did it fail to stop critical attacks, but it slowed down systems more than the worst available spyware infections. Removing those spyware infections was also easier than removing your software, because the uninstaller would fail more often than it would function. I began to keep the latest version of the Symantec removal tool in my kit because it was better to assume the uninstall would fail, and not bother to use it. Until I managed to get a significant portion of my clients away from your products, they paid me to fix problems with your software more often than any other single product by a factor of 10. At this point, even if your company came out with the perfect security product, I would advise my clients not to buy it purely based on past experience, because you do not deserve their money.
Bad jobs motivate employees to do just enough work to not get fired. Bad subscription games will entertain you just enough to keep you from quitting. As a recovered Everquest player, I've begun to follow what I call 'The 10 minute rule'. If I walk/run/do nothing for 10 minutes in a row in any game, I uninstall the game and throw it away. No second chances. I wait for reviews before I will invest in a game to avoid wasting my money.
Good game design keeps players playing with engaging content that is enjoyable to play through again and again. Bad game design creates some form of incentive to entice players to slog through boring content. Massively multiplayer game design doesn't *have* to waste our time, but it will continue to do so if you let it.
You are all getting your knickers in a twist over nothing.
The client (assuming it's similar to the Cisco Clean Access Client I'm familiar with) simply checks that Windows machines are patched and running up-to-date antivirus. Remember Blaster? That thing ate college networks. Since then network policies have gotten a bit stricter. If you read them, they are trying to protect you, and cover their own ass.
The short version of the policy: Don't do anything illegal. Run this stuff so we can make sure the network stays virus free. Don't be a jerk. If you break these, we can kick you off our network.
If you are seriously concerned about it you are paranoid. Paranoid people should grab a cheap netbook and use that on the school network, and keep your precious personal data on a different machine. Any of that Nat/VM/router shenanigans others have suggested is violating their policies, and risking problems on their network that those policies are crafted to avoid.
For years they have made a two disk external drive called Big Disk. This device uses a proprietary RAID 0 configuration. With a single drive external, if there is a problem, you can pull the drive and get a decent chance of recovering your data. If LaCie's Big Disk device fails in any way, your data is gone. LaCie will not help you. They won't even tell you what the offset or stripe size of the RAID is. Buy another device, and try putting the drives in that is their only advice. Clean room recovery is your only option, and that service for a RAID is quite expensive.
Not only do they continue to sell this device, they *advertise it for backup purposes*!
* Sturdy aluminum heat sink design for high reliability
* Ideal for large volume backups or creative pro use
* Genie and Intego Backup Manager Pro incl.
* Time Machine Compatible
Selling that device to people for backup use is unconscionable. Don't give LaCie your money.
The point is that Microsoft has no problem developing features like DVD playback, and recording television and inserting them into the OS, crushing competition and innovation in those markets, but a simple, basic, ubiquitous feature like a spelling checker might devalue their mighty Office suite, therefore it will never happen.
No one complains about Microsoft wrecking competition in the mouse driver business. Some software just doesn't need to be rewritten every time. The spelling checker is that kind of feature.
It's good to hear that Microsoft is now a trustworthy company, and will now be making products with the features we need, and fairly competing with other companies.
Have they announced a built-in spellchecker in Windows 7 yet?
If exchanging resources outside your game for resources inside your game is a problem, then your game is hopelessly broken. From the perspective of the game world, there is no difference between me selling a pile of gold to a client, and me giving a pile of gold to a friend.
Game designers should design healthy economies in their games, and stop generating money out of thin air and developing money sinks to try and remove it. This type of design is why many games have problems with hyper-inflation.
Finally, stop developing boring games. I've stopped playing them myself... if I walk/run/do nothing for 10 minutes in a row in any game, I uninstall it and throw it away. If I hear that a game won't pass that test, I don't buy it. If game designers are concerned that players 'use up' their content too quickly, work to design content with high replay value instead of artificially dragging out the game to try and earn more monthly fees.
Look, the people you are after are the people you *depend* on! We design and maintain your hardware. We write your software. We network your systems, and recover your lost passwords. We guard your data while you sleep. Do not FUCK with us!
Most major space achievements were preceded by 'bubblegum pop' science fiction stories depicting it. Popular entertainment involving mankind's potential in space is important, as it helps capture the imagination of the public and inspire future scientists. To malign it is a terrible mistake.
I have always thought that combining one of these systems with a passive solar heat storage block and a Stirling engine to help power the pump would be fantastic.
Jesus tap dancing Christ, that game came out 15 years ago! Do you *really* think it's reasonable, or even sane to expect software designed to run on machines that long ago to run on modern ones? If it got even close, it's impressive software engineering. Particularly since Microsoft changed it's primary concern away from backwards compatibility.
No matter what the setup is, some education will be required for someone completely new to computers to be comfortable. They will need to sit down with someone knowledgeable and patient to help them get comfortable, and it is quite possible that you are the wrong person for the job.
Computer people tend to be introverts. This means that someone with computer and people skills combined is a bit rare. Unless helping train new users is something you have done for a living, you will find that it isn't terribly easy to do. Computer experts have a tendency to have many blind spots when it comes to basic skills, and make assumptions about what people already know, and what is intuitive. When was the last time you had to explain to someone the difference between what the left and right mouse button do?
After you get the system configured, I recommend that you help them find what resources are available to aid them. Check your local Senior Center. New computer use among seniors will not be a new problem to them, and they will likely have classes, and perhaps a number for a reasonably priced in-home tutor.
As for setting them up with an XP system, here is what I generally do:
Fresh install of Windows, fully patched and updated.
Install Firefox, AVG, Foxit, Picasa, OpenOffice (set OO to save all files as the MS Office standard), Flash, Shockwave, iTunes, VLC, Spybot (run immunization), Malwarebytes Antimalware.
Set up a Gmail account for them.
Create desktop shortcuts for MBAM, Gmail, OpenOffice Writer, Picasa, My Documents, and My Pictures.
If this is for a relative that I will be personally supporting, Make certain that some form of remote support is set up and easy to access. Remote Desktop for XP Pro, VNC otherwise.
Topics I'd be sure to cover with them if I were sitting down to help them: Using the mouse, what is a browser, how to use email, how to search the internet, how to use Picasa, the very basics of computer security (run a monthly scan with MBAM, call me if AVG or MBAM has a problem that won't go away), starting up and shutting down.
If you are helping them use a machine for the first time, put *them* in the driver's seat! It is much more comforting to have someone with you when you first get started. This way, they are doing it themselves, but you are right there if they get lost, or have any trouble.
Because I would like to build my own machine that runs OS X.
I like and recommend Macs to those that would enjoy owning them. I own both Mac and PC machines, but I am extremely fussy about my hardware. I have always preferred to assemble my own machines, choosing high quality components. My custom machines have a much lower failure rate then store bought machines of any brand. If I take the trouble to buy a copy of OS X, and install it on my machine, I understand that Mac will not give me user support, that is only reasonable. Is it too much to ask for them to not actively attempt to sabotage my system?
The problems you list are sides effect of the mechanisms that different philosophies and faiths evolved to survive for thousands of years.
Some people can see past the dogma and find the core values being handed down by religion. The 'payload' if you will is morality. While I personally don't need a fictional father figure shaking his finger at me from the sky, and bribing me into doing what is right, there are still plenty of people that do.
Slashdot Mirror
While this advice works in a business environment, it simply isn't feasible for many home users. A knowledgeable technician with a PE disk has a reasonable chance to disable the hostile software, and then use up to date scan engines to remove remnants. If this approach is failing, at that point backing up personal data and reinstalling is wise, but it is still invasive and time consuming, so it is worth spending some time to try and avoid it.
Isn't it supposed to be observe, *then* theorize? I'm no physicist, but it seems to me that with most string theories, they are doing the opposite.
I no longer care if he delivers what he promises. I'll assume now the answer is 'no'.
What he really needs to do is budget playtesting and post-playtesting development. Without this simple and important part if the development cycle, you end up with significant flaws in the final product. For Fable 1, you have the incessant and inane voice tips. Try to get your combat multiplier even *higher*! In Fable 2 you have the death mechanic, or should I say lack therof. It trivialized combat completely, making the game feel pointless.
Make sure the game is fun before you release it!
Why was it profitable to create news outlets in traditional media from advertising money and not on the internet?
The bane of internet advertising is direct feedback. With print media, businesses would run advertising and simply hope it is working. They would renew their ads every week. In the internet age you get instant feedback on how successful it is.. number of page views, number of clicks. Poor performing ads get pulled quickly, providing less revenue.
We are at a time of transition. Many younger people consume their news entirely from the internet. While it isn't the whole population, it is growing at a very high rate. All we have to do is wait. When enough people are using the internet for their news, and enough advertisers realize that it is page hits and not clicks that matter, there will be plenty of revenue to be had producing quality news... probably even more revenue than before since the distribution costs are so much lower.
Absolutely. Autoduel was great, and Interstate 76 may be the best game ever made.
The key points are a deep car construction mechanism and a Car Wars style damage modeling system. (And no drive-by power-ups!)
I'd recommend a simple oscillator project. You can use it to either flash two LEDs or create tones for a speaker. It covers the use of transistors, resistors, and capacitors. The cost should be very low, and the project can be put together without solder in several different ways. Here is one article with an example.
http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2003/10/30/1/
Interstate 76 was based on the Mechwarrior engine, and I still believe it's the best game ever made. With Mechwarrior free, is there a chance for an I76 revival? I waited from Autoduel to I76... don't make me wait that long again!
Dear Symantec,
The reason you are steadily losing market share has less to do with the availability of reasonably good antivirus software for free, and more to do with the staggeringly awful quality of your own products. Norton Internet Security was so completely terrible, that not only did it fail to stop critical attacks, but it slowed down systems more than the worst available spyware infections. Removing those spyware infections was also easier than removing your software, because the uninstaller would fail more often than it would function. I began to keep the latest version of the Symantec removal tool in my kit because it was better to assume the uninstall would fail, and not bother to use it. Until I managed to get a significant portion of my clients away from your products, they paid me to fix problems with your software more often than any other single product by a factor of 10. At this point, even if your company came out with the perfect security product, I would advise my clients not to buy it purely based on past experience, because you do not deserve their money.
Bad jobs motivate employees to do just enough work to not get fired. Bad subscription games will entertain you just enough to keep you from quitting.
As a recovered Everquest player, I've begun to follow what I call 'The 10 minute rule'. If I walk/run/do nothing for 10 minutes in a row in any game, I uninstall the game and throw it away. No second chances. I wait for reviews before I will invest in a game to avoid wasting my money.
Good game design keeps players playing with engaging content that is enjoyable to play through again and again. Bad game design creates some form of incentive to entice players to slog through boring content. Massively multiplayer game design doesn't *have* to waste our time, but it will continue to do so if you let it.
For example, why do we use different screws to fasten down hard drives vs. CD-Rom drives?
You are all getting your knickers in a twist over nothing.
The client (assuming it's similar to the Cisco Clean Access Client I'm familiar with) simply checks that Windows machines are patched and running up-to-date antivirus. Remember Blaster? That thing ate college networks. Since then network policies have gotten a bit stricter. If you read them, they are trying to protect you, and cover their own ass.
The short version of the policy: Don't do anything illegal. Run this stuff so we can make sure the network stays virus free. Don't be a jerk. If you break these, we can kick you off our network.
If you are seriously concerned about it you are paranoid. Paranoid people should grab a cheap netbook and use that on the school network, and keep your precious personal data on a different machine. Any of that Nat/VM/router shenanigans others have suggested is violating their policies, and risking problems on their network that those policies are crafted to avoid.
Do not give LaCie your money.
For years they have made a two disk external drive called Big Disk. This device uses a proprietary RAID 0 configuration. With a single drive external, if there is a problem, you can pull the drive and get a decent chance of recovering your data. If LaCie's Big Disk device fails in any way, your data is gone. LaCie will not help you. They won't even tell you what the offset or stripe size of the RAID is. Buy another device, and try putting the drives in that is their only advice. Clean room recovery is your only option, and that service for a RAID is quite expensive.
Not only do they continue to sell this device, they *advertise it for backup purposes*!
Here is their current ad:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11138
Some excerpts:
* Sturdy aluminum heat sink design for high reliability
* Ideal for large volume backups or creative pro use
* Genie and Intego Backup Manager Pro incl.
* Time Machine Compatible
Selling that device to people for backup use is unconscionable. Don't give LaCie your money.
Serenity turned a profit once it went to DVD. Not enough of a success to create another movie, but still a success.
The point is that Microsoft has no problem developing features like DVD playback, and recording television and inserting them into the OS, crushing competition and innovation in those markets, but a simple, basic, ubiquitous feature like a spelling checker might devalue their mighty Office suite, therefore it will never happen.
No one complains about Microsoft wrecking competition in the mouse driver business. Some software just doesn't need to be rewritten every time. The spelling checker is that kind of feature.
It's good to hear that Microsoft is now a trustworthy company, and will now be making products with the features we need, and fairly competing with other companies.
Have they announced a built-in spellchecker in Windows 7 yet?
If exchanging resources outside your game for resources inside your game is a problem, then your game is hopelessly broken. From the perspective of the game world, there is no difference between me selling a pile of gold to a client, and me giving a pile of gold to a friend.
Game designers should design healthy economies in their games, and stop generating money out of thin air and developing money sinks to try and remove it. This type of design is why many games have problems with hyper-inflation.
Finally, stop developing boring games. I've stopped playing them myself... if I walk/run/do nothing for 10 minutes in a row in any game, I uninstall it and throw it away. If I hear that a game won't pass that test, I don't buy it. If game designers are concerned that players 'use up' their content too quickly, work to design content with high replay value instead of artificially dragging out the game to try and earn more monthly fees.
Look, the people you are after are the people you *depend* on! We design and maintain your hardware. We write your software. We network your systems, and recover your lost passwords. We guard your data while you sleep. Do not FUCK with us!
Most major space achievements were preceded by 'bubblegum pop' science fiction stories depicting it. Popular entertainment involving mankind's potential in space is important, as it helps capture the imagination of the public and inspire future scientists. To malign it is a terrible mistake.
"...their most advanced robot, capable of simulating human emotions..."
Arthur- "Sounds ghastly!"
Marvin- "It is. It all is. Absolutely ghastly."
[Arthur Dent]This must be some strange usage of the word 'robust' that I hadn't previously been aware of. [/Arthur Dent]
I have always thought that combining one of these systems with a passive solar heat storage block and a Stirling engine to help power the pump would be fantastic.
Heretic the game?
Jesus tap dancing Christ, that game came out 15 years ago! Do you *really* think it's reasonable, or even sane to expect software designed to run on machines that long ago to run on modern ones? If it got even close, it's impressive software engineering. Particularly since Microsoft changed it's primary concern away from backwards compatibility.
No matter what the setup is, some education will be required for someone completely new to computers to be comfortable. They will need to sit down with someone knowledgeable and patient to help them get comfortable, and it is quite possible that you are the wrong person for the job.
Computer people tend to be introverts. This means that someone with computer and people skills combined is a bit rare. Unless helping train new users is something you have done for a living, you will find that it isn't terribly easy to do. Computer experts have a tendency to have many blind spots when it comes to basic skills, and make assumptions about what people already know, and what is intuitive. When was the last time you had to explain to someone the difference between what the left and right mouse button do?
After you get the system configured, I recommend that you help them find what resources are available to aid them. Check your local Senior Center. New computer use among seniors will not be a new problem to them, and they will likely have classes, and perhaps a number for a reasonably priced in-home tutor.
As for setting them up with an XP system, here is what I generally do:
Fresh install of Windows, fully patched and updated.
Install Firefox, AVG, Foxit, Picasa, OpenOffice (set OO to save all files as the MS Office standard), Flash, Shockwave, iTunes, VLC, Spybot (run immunization), Malwarebytes Antimalware.
Set up a Gmail account for them.
Create desktop shortcuts for MBAM, Gmail, OpenOffice Writer, Picasa, My Documents, and My Pictures.
If this is for a relative that I will be personally supporting, Make certain that some form of remote support is set up and easy to access. Remote Desktop for XP Pro, VNC otherwise.
Topics I'd be sure to cover with them if I were sitting down to help them:
Using the mouse, what is a browser, how to use email, how to search the internet, how to use Picasa, the very basics of computer security (run a monthly scan with MBAM, call me if AVG or MBAM has a problem that won't go away), starting up and shutting down.
If you are helping them use a machine for the first time, put *them* in the driver's seat! It is much more comforting to have someone with you when you first get started. This way, they are doing it themselves, but you are right there if they get lost, or have any trouble.
Because I would like to build my own machine that runs OS X.
I like and recommend Macs to those that would enjoy owning them. I own both Mac and PC machines, but I am extremely fussy about my hardware. I have always preferred to assemble my own machines, choosing high quality components. My custom machines have a much lower failure rate then store bought machines of any brand. If I take the trouble to buy a copy of OS X, and install it on my machine, I understand that Mac will not give me user support, that is only reasonable. Is it too much to ask for them to not actively attempt to sabotage my system?
The problems you list are sides effect of the mechanisms that different philosophies and faiths evolved to survive for thousands of years.
Some people can see past the dogma and find the core values being handed down by religion. The 'payload' if you will is morality. While I personally don't need a fictional father figure shaking his finger at me from the sky, and bribing me into doing what is right, there are still plenty of people that do.