If Google wants to retain G+ users, they should seriously consider not ignoring entire parts of their existing userbase. To this day, Google Apps users cannot log into G+ - they have to maintain a seperate gmail account just to use the service. Imagine how many users would flee Facebook if they were forced to maintain multiple accounts - it's extra work for little return.
PS I don't mean to pick on Linksys, it's just that they're the ones I'm most familiar with. Overall the fails seemed to be in proportion to market share although every one had its particular problems.
I'll pick on Linksys. Products which overheat, have bug-ridden firmware, and an utter lack of quality control do not belong on the market.
Remember that small workgroup switch you'll often find stuffed behind a file cabinet in small office environments? It's the one whose existence you only become aware of when one or more people suddenly cannot connect to the network. A brief power outage / moon phase / random fart caused that switch to quit receiving packets, requiring a power cycle. Yep - Linksys switches are infamous for this.
The WRT600N wireless router was a decent piece of hardware, but suffered greatly due to substandard firmware. Not only was the web interface prone to random acts of stupidity like refusing to clear a field (DNS entry #3 was one such field which could not be cleared without a complete factory reset), but wireless connections to this router would become inceasingly unreliable over an approximate period of 24 hours, at which point the router would drop connections completely.
Then there's the WRT120N. This router shipped with a slight flaw which prevented Intel 2200 wireless cards (Centrino) using the Intel drivers for Windows from obtaining a connection. How did QA miss that little bug?
Seeing the quality of products Cisco has shipped under the Linksys brand makes me wary of using Cisco-branded products as well. Any company which could put such badly made and tested products on the market doesn't need my business.
Leopard won't install on any machine with a cpu clock of less than 800 MHz without some prodding. Apple also removed the drivers needed to support the old G4 Sawtooth series machines , since none of those ran at 800 MHz or above, as shipped.
There are ways around both issues, of course - it's possible to use OpenFirmware trickery to fool the installer into thinking your, say, 667 MHz G4 is an 800 MHz. The developer's preview of Leopard also appears to have Sawtooth drivers, meaning that theoretically, one can do a Leopard install on a Sawtooth using a few kexts taken from the preview. Whether this is legal or not, though, is another matter.
Of course, this is a moot point when it comes to Snow Leopard, which completely lacks support for the PPC platform.
You asked what to do with your PS3, and I provided an answer. Another option is to simply keep it and deal with the crud Sony is going to shove down your throat. It's up to you.
Agreed. I couldn't bring myself to buy a PS3, or anything else from Sony, once that whole fiasco with the rootkit blew up. My PS2 is likely the last Sony purchase I'll ever make.
There are other companies on my personal blacklist for similar reasons, including a certain fruity company from Cupertino. Sadly, treating customers like trash is becoming fashionable nowadays.
You bring up a good point, identifying a potential market segment that could be monetized.
I think I'll start a new business venture to provide a place where buyers and sellers could meet, and swap money for used items. Perhaps it could allow for bids to be placed, like an auction house, since the potential exists for there to be more demand for a particular item than there exists supply for it.
Now that I'm thinking through this new concept, I see all sorts of possibilities unfolding before me. Now, all it needs is a catchy name...
Ooh, I know! I'll call it 'eBay'! I'll be rich! Muahahaha!
Eh, it's not like Comcast is any worse that TimeWarner. In fact, if you can believe it - cable/internet got a ton WORSE in Southern California when TimeWarner took over for Comcast here. TimeWarner has just as crappy hold times, just as incompetent tech support, and don't worry - when you leave, they'll intentionally charge you for your returned hardware even though you returned it.
I beg to differ. Comcast tried to charge me for the cable box I returned. The poor customer service rep sounded a bit befuddled when he verified that the equipment had been returned, while a bill was generated anyway.
Even if it is true, the nice thing with a free operating system is that one can at least fix the bug oneself, support contracts voided or not. Try doing the same if there's a problem with Exchange or IIS.
Which begs the question - why bother paying for a commercial distribution in the first place?
Oh, I don't know about that. A couple of years ago, I had a run-in with Comcast's abuse dept.
I run a mailing list (opt-in, relating to security issues on IRC networks). One of the users on the list signed up from a spamcop email address. I sent an email to the list, which spamcop erroneously flagged as spam for this user. The spamcop user had spamcop send complaints about his 'spam' to the relevant ISPs, rather than verify they were actually spam first (a violation of spamcop's TOS, iirc).
That shouldn't have been much of a problem - Comcast gets the complaint, they look at the message being complained about, determine it's not spam, and that's the end of it, right? Nope.
Abuse cut off my ability to send email. Took damn near a week to get a hold of them (no direct # - all you can do is leave voicemail. As they're only open during business hours, and I'm at work during those same business hours, I asked them to call me back on my cellphone, as I wasn't home to answer my landline. Comcast Abuse, of course, calls the # associated with my account (landline) - the same # they failed to call when cutting off my ability to send email. This went on for several days (with a weekend stuck in between), until I left a voicemail repeating my cellphone # no less than 7 times - yes, it really took doing that for them to get the hint to call my cellphone!). When I finally saw a copy of the message that I had sent to the mailing list that triggered the abuse complaint, I asked the tech on the phone if that looked like spam. His reply? 'Uh, no...'. No answer for why I was cut off, though...
Apparently, Comcast Abuse *does* cut off legitimate customers, but when it comes to compromised machines and spamming scum actively using Comcast accounts to spam, they'll happily let them stay on their network...
Last time I tried this (about a year ago), it was still rather unstable. It's also pretty much the only java environment available for LinuxPPC, too, so IBM hasn't had much of a reason to update it.
A few years ago, the IT dept. I worked in (for a large mobile phone company) was invited to a presentation by a vendor. We were ushered into a presentation room in the brand new office they had just built nearby. On one wall of this room was a large window and a door, behind which was a number of shiny new servers, intended to impress customers.
This room was protected by a card swipe.
One of my co-workers noted the card swipe looked much like the swipes we used back at our office. He took out his id badge (for the company we worked for), and slid it through the swipe. The door to the server room unlocked. Whoops.
Actually, whomever released this particular worm is likely making money off the installed spyware via a referral-type scheme.
That's how it's usually done with malware nowadays - the authors of spyware typically don't care who is installing their crap on peoples' computers or how they're doing it. A worm author (or just someone releasing it) can sign up for an account with these spyware companies, and simply make sure the account is referenced when the spyware is installed on an unsupecting victim's machine.
It definitely makes one possible route to trace these scumbags.
... but then again, I'm apparently one of the few who liked episodes I and II, as well.
Yes, Lucas writes cheesy dialog, especially where it concerns romance. Some of his characters (Jar-Jar, anyone?) are annoying as well.
But the actual story, of the Republic's slide into tyranny, is far better than most have made it out to be.
Watching Palpatine's moves to gain ever more power in the first two episodes really made those movies for me. The ending of episode II, showing Palpatine overlooking the troops boarding the ships - that simply sent shivers up my spine.
I have to say that I liked episode III for much the same reasons. Was the space battle breathtaking? Sure. So were the lightsaber battles - but that's about it. Watching Palpatine's ambitions finally come out into the open, and watching Anakin's fall - THAT made episode III for me.
Could it have been better? Sure. Nothing's perfect. But the story being told is what did it for me - I can ignore the stupidity.
Note that this was back in 2001, when 2.4.8 had just come out. I've seen the occasional problem with relatively recent 2.4 kernels (most notably, a rare lockup during boot on the SMP box), but for the most part, the later kernels have been pretty stable.
The issue I was complaining of was simply that new drivers were continuing to show up in the kernel (therefore, adding to the bloat) while old bugs were going unfixed.
Oh, and I should mention that the SYM53c810 driver issue reappeared in later 2.4 kernels. AFAIK, it has yet to be fixed, though I haven't bothered with it on that box since last year.
2.6's development strategy seems to be following 2.4 and 2.2's before it - features first, bugfixes later. Hell, it wasn't until 2.2.13 that someone managed to fix the race condition that was causing the lockup with SMP (the patch was merged into the kernel as of 2.4.14). That's a long time for an SMP race condition to stick around. I said it four years ago, and I'll say it again - so much for stability.
I sometimes develop software, I use Linux both at home and at work, and I'm involved in security, both at work (as a sysadmin) and at home (with an IRC network I help maintain in my spare time).
That might explain why I listen to electronica (various bands, some Orbital, and I've even come across a Manual album), metal (Blind Guardian, Arena, Iced Earth, Threshold, Therion...), and while I'm hardly into The Grateful Dead, I *do* listen to Pink Floyd.:P
twitter asked for a single example of a free software worm that auto-propgated itself. I provided two.
Those are *excellent* examples of worms which have affected *nix, because they were able to spread rapidly. Yes, they're three years old, and yes, I think it's an inherent strength of the way Linux (and UNIX) is designed that more haven't appeared yet.
If you actually take the time to comprehend my post, you'll see I'm not here to 'bash' Linux (in fact, I've used Linux since 1996, and I've been predicting a scenario along the lines of what Microsoft is facing since around 1998 or so).
Please don't assume what I will or will not say. I know of the prevalence of Linux systems - I admin them for a living. Not only do I know the arguments for Linux and against Windows - I use them myself, quite often.
There are many reasons for not using Windows (and, as time goes on, more tend to appear). However, the original reasons I quit using Windows were because the software is an unstable, slow POS. To this day, I do not dedicate a single workstation of mine (be it at home or at work) to Windows - though the list of reasons has grown beyond the original two now (Security? What's that?)
Slashdot Mirror
If Google wants to retain G+ users, they should seriously consider not ignoring entire parts of their existing userbase. To this day, Google Apps users cannot log into G+ - they have to maintain a seperate gmail account just to use the service. Imagine how many users would flee Facebook if they were forced to maintain multiple accounts - it's extra work for little return.
Well played. Now, go take your alzheimers medication before you forget. *duck*
I was born in 83. Gimme ur lunch money, kid!
1976. Now get off my lawn.
PS I don't mean to pick on Linksys, it's just that they're the ones I'm most familiar with. Overall the fails seemed to be in proportion to market share although every one had its particular problems.
I'll pick on Linksys. Products which overheat, have bug-ridden firmware, and an utter lack of quality control do not belong on the market.
Remember that small workgroup switch you'll often find stuffed behind a file cabinet in small office environments? It's the one whose existence you only become aware of when one or more people suddenly cannot connect to the network. A brief power outage / moon phase / random fart caused that switch to quit receiving packets, requiring a power cycle. Yep - Linksys switches are infamous for this.
The WRT600N wireless router was a decent piece of hardware, but suffered greatly due to substandard firmware. Not only was the web interface prone to random acts of stupidity like refusing to clear a field (DNS entry #3 was one such field which could not be cleared without a complete factory reset), but wireless connections to this router would become inceasingly unreliable over an approximate period of 24 hours, at which point the router would drop connections completely.
Then there's the WRT120N. This router shipped with a slight flaw which prevented Intel 2200 wireless cards (Centrino) using the Intel drivers for Windows from obtaining a connection. How did QA miss that little bug?
Seeing the quality of products Cisco has shipped under the Linksys brand makes me wary of using Cisco-branded products as well. Any company which could put such badly made and tested products on the market doesn't need my business.
Leopard won't install on any machine with a cpu clock of less than 800 MHz without some prodding. Apple also removed the drivers needed to support the old G4 Sawtooth series machines , since none of those ran at 800 MHz or above, as shipped.
There are ways around both issues, of course - it's possible to use OpenFirmware trickery to fool the installer into thinking your, say, 667 MHz G4 is an 800 MHz. The developer's preview of Leopard also appears to have Sawtooth drivers, meaning that theoretically, one can do a Leopard install on a Sawtooth using a few kexts taken from the preview. Whether this is legal or not, though, is another matter.
Of course, this is a moot point when it comes to Snow Leopard, which completely lacks support for the PPC platform.
You asked what to do with your PS3, and I provided an answer. Another option is to simply keep it and deal with the crud Sony is going to shove down your throat. It's up to you.
Agreed. I couldn't bring myself to buy a PS3, or anything else from Sony, once that whole fiasco with the rootkit blew up. My PS2 is likely the last Sony purchase I'll ever make.
There are other companies on my personal blacklist for similar reasons, including a certain fruity company from Cupertino. Sadly, treating customers like trash is becoming fashionable nowadays.
You bring up a good point, identifying a potential market segment that could be monetized.
I think I'll start a new business venture to provide a place where buyers and sellers could meet, and swap money for used items. Perhaps it could allow for bids to be placed, like an auction house, since the potential exists for there to be more demand for a particular item than there exists supply for it.
Now that I'm thinking through this new concept, I see all sorts of possibilities unfolding before me. Now, all it needs is a catchy name...
Ooh, I know! I'll call it 'eBay'! I'll be rich! Muahahaha!
That might work. A 6 ft soldier would appear to be displaced by about 4.5', if that ratio holds.
Eh, it's not like Comcast is any worse that TimeWarner. In fact, if you can believe it - cable/internet got a ton WORSE in Southern California when TimeWarner took over for Comcast here. TimeWarner has just as crappy hold times, just as incompetent tech support, and don't worry - when you leave, they'll intentionally charge you for your returned hardware even though you returned it.
I beg to differ. Comcast tried to charge me for the cable box I returned. The poor customer service rep sounded a bit befuddled when he verified that the equipment had been returned, while a bill was generated anyway.
In the end, *all* ISPs suck.
Even if it is true, the nice thing with a free operating system is that one can at least fix the bug oneself, support contracts voided or not. Try doing the same if there's a problem with Exchange or IIS.
Which begs the question - why bother paying for a commercial distribution in the first place?
Oh, I don't know about that. A couple of years ago, I had a run-in with Comcast's abuse dept.
I run a mailing list (opt-in, relating to security issues on IRC networks). One of the users on the list signed up from a spamcop email address. I sent an email to the list, which spamcop erroneously flagged as spam for this user. The spamcop user had spamcop send complaints about his 'spam' to the relevant ISPs, rather than verify they were actually spam first (a violation of spamcop's TOS, iirc).
That shouldn't have been much of a problem - Comcast gets the complaint, they look at the message being complained about, determine it's not spam, and that's the end of it, right? Nope.
Abuse cut off my ability to send email. Took damn near a week to get a hold of them (no direct # - all you can do is leave voicemail. As they're only open during business hours, and I'm at work during those same business hours, I asked them to call me back on my cellphone, as I wasn't home to answer my landline. Comcast Abuse, of course, calls the # associated with my account (landline) - the same # they failed to call when cutting off my ability to send email. This went on for several days (with a weekend stuck in between), until I left a voicemail repeating my cellphone # no less than 7 times - yes, it really took doing that for them to get the hint to call my cellphone!). When I finally saw a copy of the message that I had sent to the mailing list that triggered the abuse complaint, I asked the tech on the phone if that looked like spam. His reply? 'Uh, no...'. No answer for why I was cut off, though...
Apparently, Comcast Abuse *does* cut off legitimate customers, but when it comes to compromised machines and spamming scum actively using Comcast accounts to spam, they'll happily let them stay on their network...
Go fig.
Last time I tried this (about a year ago), it was still rather unstable. It's also pretty much the only java environment available for LinuxPPC, too, so IBM hasn't had much of a reason to update it.
A few years ago, the IT dept. I worked in (for a large mobile phone company) was invited to a presentation by a vendor. We were ushered into a presentation room in the brand new office they had just built nearby. On one wall of this room was a large window and a door, behind which was a number of shiny new servers, intended to impress customers.
This room was protected by a card swipe.
One of my co-workers noted the card swipe looked much like the swipes we used back at our office. He took out his id badge (for the company we worked for), and slid it through the swipe. The door to the server room unlocked. Whoops.
The vendor? Microsoft.
Actually, whomever released this particular worm is likely making money off the installed spyware via a referral-type scheme.
That's how it's usually done with malware nowadays - the authors of spyware typically don't care who is installing their crap on peoples' computers or how they're doing it. A worm author (or just someone releasing it) can sign up for an account with these spyware companies, and simply make sure the account is referenced when the spyware is installed on an unsupecting victim's machine.
It definitely makes one possible route to trace these scumbags.
The other party actually has to respond.
... but then again, I'm apparently one of the few who liked episodes I and II, as well.
Yes, Lucas writes cheesy dialog, especially where it concerns romance. Some of his characters (Jar-Jar, anyone?) are annoying as well.
But the actual story, of the Republic's slide into tyranny, is far better than most have made it out to be.
Watching Palpatine's moves to gain ever more power in the first two episodes really made those movies for me. The ending of episode II, showing Palpatine overlooking the troops boarding the ships - that simply sent shivers up my spine.
I have to say that I liked episode III for much the same reasons. Was the space battle breathtaking? Sure. So were the lightsaber battles - but that's about it. Watching Palpatine's ambitions finally come out into the open, and watching Anakin's fall - THAT made episode III for me.
Could it have been better? Sure. Nothing's perfect. But the story being told is what did it for me - I can ignore the stupidity.
Actually, I think that the technical difficulties happen at the compression step - once compressed, the data tends to go nowhere.
Note that this was back in 2001, when 2.4.8 had just come out. I've seen the occasional problem with relatively recent 2.4 kernels (most notably, a rare lockup during boot on the SMP box), but for the most part, the later kernels have been pretty stable.
The issue I was complaining of was simply that new drivers were continuing to show up in the kernel (therefore, adding to the bloat) while old bugs were going unfixed.
Oh, and I should mention that the SYM53c810 driver issue reappeared in later 2.4 kernels. AFAIK, it has yet to be fixed, though I haven't bothered with it on that box since last year.
2.6's development strategy seems to be following 2.4 and 2.2's before it - features first, bugfixes later. Hell, it wasn't until 2.2.13 that someone managed to fix the race condition that was causing the lockup with SMP (the patch was merged into the kernel as of 2.4.14). That's a long time for an SMP race condition to stick around. I said it four years ago, and I'll say it again - so much for stability.
...and the kernel has continued to bloat since then.
Are we going too fast?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=116638&cid=987 7985
This would appear to clear up after removing the old cookie slashdot sets.
I sometimes develop software, I use Linux both at home and at work, and I'm involved in security, both at work (as a sysadmin) and at home (with an IRC network I help maintain in my spare time).
:P
That might explain why I listen to electronica (various bands, some Orbital, and I've even come across a Manual album), metal (Blind Guardian, Arena, Iced Earth, Threshold, Therion...), and while I'm hardly into The Grateful Dead, I *do* listen to Pink Floyd.
Whoda' thunk it...
twitter asked for a single example of a free software worm that auto-propgated itself. I provided two.
Those are *excellent* examples of worms which have affected *nix, because they were able to spread rapidly. Yes, they're three years old, and yes, I think it's an inherent strength of the way Linux (and UNIX) is designed that more haven't appeared yet.
If you actually take the time to comprehend my post, you'll see I'm not here to 'bash' Linux (in fact, I've used Linux since 1996, and I've been predicting a scenario along the lines of what Microsoft is facing since around 1998 or so).
Please don't assume what I will or will not say. I know of the prevalence of Linux systems - I admin them for a living. Not only do I know the arguments for Linux and against Windows - I use them myself, quite often.
> Can anyone point to a single free software worm that auto propagated?
How about the lion and ramen worms from 2001? Or how about the fact that someone is trying to convince phatbot/agobot to compile on Linux?
Free software is not impervious to worms. However, due to the diversity of systems, it tends to be far more difficult to write a single exploit.
Then again, Free Software tends to have patches pretty quickly, too. Where's Microsoft with the patch for this latest pair of vulnerabilities in IE?
There are many reasons for not using Windows (and, as time goes on, more tend to appear). However, the original reasons I quit using Windows were because the software is an unstable, slow POS. To this day, I do not dedicate a single workstation of mine (be it at home or at work) to Windows - though the list of reasons has grown beyond the original two now (Security? What's that?)