It's already there on every hard drive box, it says something along the lines of "The Manufacturer considers 1GB to equal 1000MB"
True, but how many normal computer users even know what the actual HD even looks like? Let alone knows to look at the label on the HD and see the actual number?
Instead Joe AOLuser buys his new computer to surf the interweb. He see's that it's advertised as having 150 GB of HD space for all the Home Video he'll never load and edit. But then he manages one day to double click on the My Computer icon and single click on the C: drive icon, and low and behold it says actual size 140gb. Now he's pissed off that he was ripped off of that extra 10 gigs.
I know I was a little upset when I realized what was going on a few computers ago when I first saw this. Up and thru my old SCSI 2gig the HD was the size it was advertised as. Ever since then they come up short. And as the HD's get bigger the shortage gets bigger.
I'll watch this and faintly hope for a class action settlement.
The problem with the security in this situation is easy to see.
The classified stuff should never be connected to the unclassified networks.
The Miltary has well established, physically seperate networks for working with classified info.
The script kiddie and the Sergeant while both guilty of hacking, should not be held responsible for being able to get access to classified systems from unclassed systems. The IT dept is at fault there, and needs to face severe consequences.
That would not be a good Idea, even though they've been destroying them for several years, Utah is still home to a large stockpile of Chemical Weapons. We can and will retaliate. Oh plus Hill Field does critical maintenance on the Nations ICBM's and the B2 bombers.
Bring it on. As I said we can retaliate, and not just with some wussy science project.
The Civilian contractors do tend to provide decent service though I have had some concerns. The 6 shops (G-6 or S-6) vary greatly, often based on the knowledge of the officer in charge. I know one G-6 who's Masters is in comp sci, he knows his stuff runs a tight shop, and has recently been very instrumental in getting new equip for my unit.
However, when deployed to macedonia a couple years ago, there was more than one occasion when I found myself explaining to the six shop there, where a problem with one of my office's systems was and how to fix it. (this shop actually tried to recruit me into their shop when they realized what I knew, but I had another job to do. It's been a couple years so I can't remember exactly what it was but I also remember that when Code Red and the Anna Kournikova virus hit, (god was that one a pain, what email subject is every male soldier guarenteed to open immediately but one promising pictures of a babe), the non-classified systems (referred to as the NIPR-net) in my office were some of the lightest impacted systems on the base. Of course as the classified systems are totally seperate they saw no problems.
On the other hand, the six shop there did know how to work the exchange server and utilize all it's features for collabrative work.
Now I contrast that with my most recent trip overseas, Bosnia. There the NIPR-net was run decently with frequent reminders to update the anti-virus software. However, I had some concerns about the support the civ contractors provided. For example, I took a system in after my CO had managed to fry the mouse port on his box. It's very easy to do when running on 220 volt electric systems. Anyway the problem was easily diagnosed and was an easy fix of swapping the Mobo. So when I turn it in they warn me that the hard drive will most likely be re-imaged as part of the repair. When I asked why the hell they needed to even bother with the HD when it was just a mobo prob, they told me it was standard procedure for any service. Upon further thought I now recall that this was just weeks after that same system had had its powersupply die and the CO was talking about how it had a new HD after he got it back. They reimaged the HD for that repair as well.
Oh and how can I ever forget the pain of the webfilter they used. Since when should http://www.joecartoon.com be blocked? Sure it's tasteless, thats why I wanted to go there.;) What better way to deal with the stresses of military life than nuking hamsters?
Then there was the problems with some specialized systems we ran on the classified network. My unit had people scattered around all the bases in the US sector of Bosnia. We were to implement the use of a new integrated system. Problem was the six shop was never able to figure out how to get the systems to be able to see each other over the WAN.
This was a system that had supposedly been thoroughly vetted on state-side setups of the same network we were on, but evidently nobody had ever tried getting the systems to talk to each other from seperate locations through the encryption systems. As the network was based on the everpresent M$ exhcange server systems, I could find the remote systems in the My Network area. But the network people could (or would) never figure out what ports the systems needed open for the specialized apps to communicate, and of course I wasn't authorized to install any tools to determine the ports needed. At the end of our six months the systems were still not being used as designed because they couldn't talk to each other.
Other aspects of the IT environment I've seen are also of note.
About three years ago someone in my Guard unit got so upset with the lack of automation we had to work with that he solicited a donation of older systems from his employer. Even then the best systems in the unit were the three 266Mhz Compaq presario notebooks we the unit had received in 97. When t
I gotta agree with you on this. Just about every other mouse I've ever had including a few Logitechs were light and flimsy(my last non-MS mouse was a Logitech. Their mouse balls would get gunked up real bad real quick. The MS mice I've had (Two in the last seven years) just feel sturdier, and the first one's ball took alot longer to get so gunked that it would get hard to control. My current one is an optical and I have had absolutely zero complaints about it. It Rocks.
I won't even look at, or even more importantly recommend any other brands of mice currently.
My favorite was the warning on children's cough syrup to "not operate heavy equipment or drive". They may have removed the warning by now; my youngest child is 22 now.
Hmm You may have just hit on the reason for the warning.
Just a recomendation, but you might consider switching to non-children's medicines next time your youngest gets sick.
Replying to my own post, but I was just reading a message on one of the security lists I monitor, and by one account, this worm went right through Norton's firewall even thought the firewall was configured to block it. (Note: I have not verified this claim.)
I myself have spent most of today trying to clean it off my laptop. I wanted to comment on Norton's falings on this. My system had crashed once before I recieved a Liveupdate from Norton that immediately detected it. In otherwords it was slamming systems and Norton couldn't see it.
Then even though I had followed all the steps to clean it off, Including verifying that the registry key was cleared and that the msblast.exe was deleted, I was still getting the shutdowns. I'd also like to note that I was able to be online for a while without a crash if I avoided using any MS internet software. using Opera and Mozilla I was able to stay on long enough to dl the updates and cleaner tools
There is no excuse not to be learning how to use a computer in this day and age, yet the majority of support calls I get are for people with most basic problems.
Interesting this point should be made as I was talking about this with a friend the other day. He's a detail finisher (the guy who puts in the sideboards stairsteps and bannisters in new houses as well as other carpentry) He is very good at what he does, and has absolutely no need to use a computer in that field of work. However he noted to me that he had decided he wanted to learn about computers.
He ran into the problems when he went looking for somewhere to learn some basics. He was taking some classes at the local university and looked into their intro to computer classes. They were assuming a greater base knowledge than he has. Even just a couple years ago he would have an easy time finding beginning level classes at the appropriate level. Now it's alot harder. The Schools are assuming all the incoming students have grown up with computers in their schools if not at home as well. A rather flawed assumption IMHO, maybe in another decade, but a big part of the dot-com bubble was due to people getting their first computers and getting online, and not enough time has passed for the general level of knowledge the colelges are assuming to spread. I advised him to check the local HS Adult Education courses and promised to help him some myself.
On the tech support issue, I played the tech support game myself till I didn't prove to be enough of a drone. I'd rather fix the problem than follow the script. It's probably just pride but I considered myself very good at it.
I've also (who hasn't) had to call tech support and have connected to both good and bad. The good ones are obvious as they tend to listen to my explanations of what diagnostics I've already done, whereas the drones will tune me out till I'm done and then start at line one of their scripts. As if the Dell Diagnostic CD will be able to fix a dead MoBo.;)
So both sides can be very frustrating. However if the industry wouldn't drive away the real techs, I'm of the Opinion that the frustration levels on both ends would be greatly reduced. And there are few rushes as good as walking an extreme novice through a very complex and difficult repair.
I'm introverted and I don't have any self esteem problems and it has nothing to do with what the world wants. I'm introverted because I have found that if people find out that I know how to fix problems (caused by the incompetent extraverts that became extraverts because they had to frequently "reach out" to people that knew how to fix stuff), then they latch deeper into my skin than an alabama tick.
...
The last time I said "Gee, that's an easy fix" was almost 3 years ago. Now I'm being rode like a $3 hooker and it's payday.
Thats not being introverted, thats being smart when surounded by technomorons. Introverted is saying to yourself, "Hey thats an easy fix, but he probably doesn't want to be interrupted so I'll just stay in my own little corner and do my job."
This subject is not crap, and such allegations and biases against those who are seriously introverted, are why such books as this need to be published. Said biases are not intentional but do exist. In my own experience, I've seen idiotic extroverts get promoted over very intelligent and much more capable introverts. The Extroverts do a much better job of kissing up (even if they aren't doing it on purpose) than the Introverts do.
The managers look and see the Extro constantly working with others and thinks, "gee that person may be PHB material." Meanwhile it's the Introvert who has been noted to grumble when interrupted (thus obviously not a team player,) who actually gets most of the real work done.
Granted this is by no means an absolute, but I've seen it. It's even happened to me, not quite the scenario describe above but close enough.
On top of that issue, there are of course several other factors that are at work - the soft economy during 2001/2002, competitors for the teenage spending dollar, and of course the rise of online file trading. I know personally that I haven't bought a CD in a couple years, mostly due to the fact I haven't heard anything that compelling, but also that if I want a particular song (rather then blow $$$ on the whole CD), I can get it in a couple minutes online. If these knuckleheads could implement a useful, cheap service to pay for songs, I just might do it. But I want to be able to burn CD's to play in my car, and have access to a wide selection of music - not just one company's stable of trick ponies.
Good point, I have bought 6 CD's in the last couple years but of note is where I bought them, at the Army Airforce Exhanges where a new release is only 12 - 13 dollars. Everynow and then I wander into the Music section of Walmart or Target (sadly there are only a couple of Music stores leftaround here.) I wander for a couple minutes until I see the $18 for most new releases unless the store is having a sale in which case they might drop to $16. Once look at those prices and I'm back out to the rest of the store.
Most pirated CDs, though, are sold in countries with bigger issues to worry about than copyright. At Russian street kiosks, for instance, 60 rubles (about $1.80) will get you a professionally manufactured greatest-hits collection by anyone from Annie Lennox to Helloween, often designed to look just like Abba's Forever Gold. Another 10 rubles, and you can get a CD with MP3s of every song by your favorite artist (Marie Osmond, Brian Eno, Nurse With Wound . . . ), with lyrics and pictures thrown in for good measure.
Great point, and I'd like to throw in my personal observations from being deployed to the Balkans by Uncle Sam (both to Bosnia and to Kosovo) The Balkans regions have very low average incomes (about $1200 US a year in Kosovo and slghtly more in Bosnia) Now take that low income level, combine it with a universal love of music and see how well bootleg CD's are going to sell verses how many $15 CD's are going to get sold.
Instead they buy the very available bootleg versions for around $1.50 to $2.50 US per disk, the price range depends on what the people can afford. In addition the bootleggers love to make mixes. And those are even better buys cause then you can find all the hits of your favorite group on a one or two (or more if needed) disk set at the cost of about $2.00 per disk.
Per disk is a key phrase as well as that is how the CD's are priced, be they Music or Software. Want the complete set of the latest release of M$ Office, it's usually on four disks, so it'll set you back a whopping $16. And as Myopicman quoted, the MP3 disks can be amazing with how much they'll stuff on them. Though they often come with autorun programs that are in Russian or some other Slavic language. In addition bad rips are very common. On regular music CD's it's easy to listen through a disk and determine if there are problems, and most shops will allow you to trade faulty disks with no questions. However, an MP3 disk can contain so many hours of music, it's a more time consuming task to determine if the disk is worth taking back. If the disk is good though they usually do include jpegs of the album covers, lyrics and trivia about the albums and the group.
It gets even better, while on the Kosovo deployment I was actually stationed in Macedonia at the rear support base. The local police asked us to call them whenever anyone would try to set up and sell CD's right outside the base. It wasn't becasue they cared about the Cd's being bootlegged, it was that someone setting up a roadside stand like that wasn't paying taxes, as opposed to the MANY established shops that did pay taxes and were thus allowed to sell at will. One other item of interest that I noted, almost the only full price CD's that did sell well were of local (ie Macedonian) groups and singers, and those were still cheaper than anything from the west.
And yes I'll be honest to admit that I brought back a nice collection of music and software. US Customs doesn't care about CD's as long as it doesn't appear that you have multiple copies of each CD i.e. you're not planning on selling them back in the states.
Welcome to the United State of America. Allow the nice lady at the counter to take your picture, retinal scan, fingerprints, blood sample, stool sample, urine sample, hair follicle, oral swab. After that please check one of the two YES or NO boxes next to "I AM A TERRORIST" statement.
As I Read this and one of the replies to this comment, it occured to me that although I do consider myself somewhat of a Patriot. And the difference between a Patriot and a Terrorist can be merely the semantics of which side of any armed dispute your on. Based on that fact, which is part of the definition of what makes someone a terrorist, I would have to answer yes to that question. I serve in the US Army, and am quite certain that Mr. Hussein considers all american soldiers terrorists.
My point is that, that question is a very bad one to ask people. They may as well ask "Are you a citizen of a country that has any dispute with any other country or group in the world?"
your a fool
your a fool to belive that M$ is just sitting back and waiting 2-3 years to release IE 7, right now they have an update ready to go for IE 6.5, and should some "new technologies" come out before the next OS, rest assured that M$ will release a patch with most of the other stuff they were plannig on releasing anywayse.
So thats why I.E has such an exceptional Tabbed browsing system built in, as well as M$'s own superior series of mouse gestures that put anything Opera has to shame. Oh wait Internet Exploder has neither of those extremely useful features. Boy M$ sure is keeping IE competative.
When is M$ going to release the patch with those features, or perhaps built in Bayesian filtering on Outlook and Outlook express? And, in my mind the Piece de Resitance, Pop-up blocking. The number one reason to stay away from and advise friends and family away from IE is it's inability to block pop-ups.
Currently it seems to me that M$ is asleep at the wheel and may be in for a rude awakening as word of the other browsers gets spread. Plus the minor fact that the other browsers have nowhere near the history of vulnerabilities as IE.
So... Do you know where Hungary is? Can you find it on a map? Without Google?
Yep been there. Was in Budapest just last January. In fact I watched the Superbowl while there. Pissed me off to no end, everytime the ABC feed went to cut away to the commercials (my favorite part of the big Game) instead we got some British blokes trying to analyse the game. Boring, they did understand the game but their analsys was far inferior to Maddens.
If i find site that won't ship to me, i'll be unhappy, and maybe try to convince them otherwise, but i'm not going to demand that they leave and go make their own damn web.
But what if none of them will ship to you? I'll admit this is why I will no longer buy anything from buy.com inspite of their often rather good prices. While deployed overseas, I found out that buy.com has no options for addresses outside of the 50 states (and manybe canada) This included no option for APO addresses, the addresses used by our US military personnel. APO addresses are supposed to be treated in every way as stateside addresses. I emailed buy.com on this several times with no response. So I went to Amazon. Amazon wouldn't ship tech, or electronics to me but they would at least feed my book and DVD habits.
This issue has nothing to do with any particular countries. I can speak from personal experience on this.
In the last three years I've been deployed to the Balkans twice by the US Army. I go nowhere without my laptop. But good luck trying to get updated software or Accessories, As the original article mentioned Amazon will at least sell books and movies, but little else.
The last time I deployed I had just purchased a new laptop, and realized after I was enroute that Norton System Tools 2002 did not support the XP the system ran, so I tried to order Norton System Tools 2003. Nobody would ship it, and it the PX didn't stock it. I ended up ordering it to my home and having my family send it to me. The same issue came up when I decided I wanted an ergonomic keyboard. Unable to ship the Norton, I could kind of understand as there maybe some export restirctions for some reason, but a funky shaped keyboard? And I have to note that all this stuff was being sent to my APO address. All I should have had to do was find companies that used the US Postal Service as all APO's are treated as stateside mail addresses. No Luck and again the Post Exchange(PX) system's lousy tech selection didn't help me either. Supposedly anything I want the PX has it online, right. At least Amazon would send my books and most important my DVD's quickly. (Hint to anyone deployed or looking at getting deployed, when ordering to an APO select the cheapest shipping option, they automatically upgrade it to first class mail at no charge.)
Try to order something of an electronic or software nature to an overseas address. Most online retailers have their systems set up to serve only the US and maybe Canada. They aren't limiting to trouble countries like Hungary, they usually won't even give any shipping option or purchase option outside the US, not even to APO's which are legally considered stateside addresses.
Again as I said above, I can understand it if the merchants are forced to balk on some items with export restrictions such as encryption restrictions. However, instead they have made it a blanket blockage on items that don't fall into those categories.
Okay you say, but I've just mentioned difficulties with APO addresses using US mail, and what about other forms of shipping. So add the higher shipping charges as necessary. UPS, DHL FEDEX and other shippers do ship overseas. I will grant some difficulties due to customs tarrifs, but wonder how much a burden that really is considering how widespead the aformentioned delivery companies's operations are.
Determining the shipping charges may take some additional time, but thats easy to handle. Simply put into the transaction software a point where the purchaser may have to wait a brief time until the purchase and shipping charges can be confirmed and then emailed to the purchaser with a link back to the purchase to complete the transaction.
In conclusion I agree with the Original Article, in this day of international commerce and the World Wide Web why can't we get basic electronics software and computers and components shipped overseas?
Well, perhaps you would be patching your machine if OS X were open source, but let's face it: 99,9% of Linux users never patches their OS manually (i.e. edit source code and recompile).
What????, You mean there are other ways to update my Linux distro, other than manually retyping every line of code each time there is an update?
So -- what's to stop people from using the excepted planes? Or planes originating in a country where installment of such a system isn't required?
Hack proof doesn't mean can't be *circumvented*
And anything larger than an atomic set of instructions is hackable.
Ahh but the the realm of Counter Terrorism perfection is not required. This is a case of hardening the target. (and much more effective than anything we have to go through at the airports these days is). The system does not have to be absolutely impervious, just really hard to crack.
Every additional bit of training the terrorists have to go through in order to be able to crack the system, makes it that much less likely a target for them. Now not only do they have to be trained well enough to fly the planes, now they have to bring along an avionics engineer who knows how to access the "Softwall" system and disable it.
Terrorists will look for the softer target. That is why they chose planes with small passenger loads, fewer people to try to resist them, (and that precaution failed them on flt 93.) This sytem sounds great to me, as someone else has noted it can be interfaced with the anti-collision systems currently in use to allow a temporary break of the "Wall", so that remote risk is alleviated.
As to the usage of excepted planes. Lets conduct a test. Why don't you go and try to board any Military Aircraft you can find. Just walk right up to it and hop aboard. Once the SP's and MP's finish with you, you can come back share with us how "Easy it was". The Military takes care of it's aircraft. When on the tarmac, you don't want to do anything to piss off the Air Farce Security Police (the previously mentioned SP's). And for your sake and the sake of our "Test" I hope you don't choose an aircraft loaded with nuclear weapons, they tend to shoot first and ask questions later with those.
And as to the originating from another country, well that is a slight risk, but as the major manufacturers of Air craft are in the US and Europe, getting it in all new aircraft is easy, and we have simple things called Laws that we can use to ban all unequipped Commercial aircraft from US airspace. The FAA does it quite regularly with other safety features that have been implemented.
Those planes that don't get upgraded, don't enter our airspace legally. Thus the entrance of such an aircraft into our Airspace would be a major red flag which would automatically prompt more attention than any terrorists would want.
This reminds me so much of the uncounted announced attacks on AOL. When I worked tech support there a few years back, every couple months we would hear about these mass attacks that were going to happen. They never did.
Oh I'm sure a few sites will be defaced by the kiddies, but it won't amount to any serious damage. And if they choose to target the/. enemies (RIAA, MPAA, etc... more power to them.
Here is the text of a news report on one cache gone bad. The newspaper's web site requires registration so here is the text from Utah's Ogden Standard Examiner (www.standard.net)
Techno game brings out Hill bomb squad
Wed, Feb 26, 2003
By JOEY HAWS
Standard-Examiner staff
ROY -- One man"s techno game was another man"s suspicious package Tuesday when reports of an overcoat-clad man placing a red tackle box under a bridge brought traffic to a grinding halt and brought out the bomb squad.
Around 2:45 p.m. near the Hill Air Force Base gate in Roy, someone saw a man dressed in a long, black trench coat walk toward a bridge that spanned a nearby canal, pick up a red container and then place it back under the bridge, Sgt. Mike Elliott, Roy police, said.
"The close proximity to the base made it even more suspicious, so we really had to proceed with caution until we knew what it was," Elliott said.
The container turned out to be a red plastic fish tackle box containing a variety of "junk toys and trinkets" placed there apparently by a group of high-tech adventure seekers, known as "geocachers." The would-be super sleuths use a global positioning system and clues left on a Web site to track down the package, or cache, full of various items.
"The basic idea (of geocaching) is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the Internet," according to the Web site, www.geocaching.com. "GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache."
That was what the man dressed in the trench coat was doing, Elliott said. In fact, the cache has been visited by approximately 80 people since it was hidden Oct. 12, 2002, by someone with the login name "Wildcat Treasuregirl," according to the Web site.
But with base traffic getting ready to reach its peak during a 3 p.m. shift change, and the possibility the container was something of a sinister nature, police had to take the situation seriously.
While traffic in the area was shut down for an hour or more, a bomb squad from the base was called to the scene to investigate the package.
Word of the cache discovery quickly reached the geocachers as a warning message was posted on the Web site telling people to stay away.
"We just received an e-mail from someone at HAFB that the police and bomb squad was here investigating a mysterious box," the posted message said. "We suggest you stay away from this cache for the time being. This might not be a good location for a cache with the current world situation."
Another geocacher wrote: "They didn"t take kindly to a geocache placed under a bridge outside the entrance to a military facility. Too bad, it was a great cache!"
Elliott said once the squad located the container, they determined it was full of harmless materials after X-raying it rather than blowing it up, which was once a standard procedure of suspicious packages.
"Because of the biological and chemical threats these days, the bomb squad"s protocol has changed quite a bit," Elliott said. "Unless they can confirm it is an explosive, they will do everything they can not to blow it up."
Elliott said he understands how playing the geocache game can be a fun adventure for people who chose to participate, but he questions the reasoning behind placing it so close to a military base.
"Probably not the best place in the world to be putting something like that," he said.
According to the Geocaching Web site, there are 43,633 active caches in 162 countries.
In the last seven days, there have been 28,581 new logs written by 5,808 account holders.
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Instead Joe AOLuser buys his new computer to surf the interweb. He see's that it's advertised as having 150 GB of HD space for all the Home Video he'll never load and edit. But then he manages one day to double click on the My Computer icon and single click on the C: drive icon, and low and behold it says actual size 140gb. Now he's pissed off that he was ripped off of that extra 10 gigs.
I know I was a little upset when I realized what was going on a few computers ago when I first saw this. Up and thru my old SCSI 2gig the HD was the size it was advertised as. Ever since then they come up short. And as the HD's get bigger the shortage gets bigger.
I'll watch this and faintly hope for a class action settlement.
The classified stuff should never be connected to the unclassified networks.
The Miltary has well established, physically seperate networks for working with classified info.
The script kiddie and the Sergeant while both guilty of hacking, should not be held responsible for being able to get access to classified systems from unclassed systems. The IT dept is at fault there, and needs to face severe consequences.
The places because they desperately need it, and the computers in a desperate attempt to get more current hardware.
Yeah, but ask anyone in the Army if he/she's in the Air Farce and they'll reply, "No I'm in the military"
That would not be a good Idea, even though they've been destroying them for several years, Utah is still home to a large stockpile of Chemical Weapons. We can and will retaliate. Oh plus Hill Field does critical maintenance on the Nations ICBM's and the B2 bombers. Bring it on. As I said we can retaliate, and not just with some wussy science project.
The Civilian contractors do tend to provide decent service though I have had some concerns. The 6 shops (G-6 or S-6) vary greatly, often based on the knowledge of the officer in charge. I know one G-6 who's Masters is in comp sci, he knows his stuff runs a tight shop, and has recently been very instrumental in getting new equip for my unit.
However, when deployed to macedonia a couple years ago, there was more than one occasion when I found myself explaining to the six shop there, where a problem with one of my office's systems was and how to fix it. (this shop actually tried to recruit me into their shop when they realized what I knew, but I had another job to do. It's been a couple years so I can't remember exactly what it was but I also remember that when Code Red and the Anna Kournikova virus hit, (god was that one a pain, what email subject is every male soldier guarenteed to open immediately but one promising pictures of a babe), the non-classified systems (referred to as the NIPR-net) in my office were some of the lightest impacted systems on the base. Of course as the classified systems are totally seperate they saw no problems.
On the other hand, the six shop there did know how to work the exchange server and utilize all it's features for collabrative work.
Now I contrast that with my most recent trip overseas, Bosnia. There the NIPR-net was run decently with frequent reminders to update the anti-virus software. However, I had some concerns about the support the civ contractors provided. For example, I took a system in after my CO had managed to fry the mouse port on his box. It's very easy to do when running on 220 volt electric systems. Anyway the problem was easily diagnosed and was an easy fix of swapping the Mobo. So when I turn it in they warn me that the hard drive will most likely be re-imaged as part of the repair. When I asked why the hell they needed to even bother with the HD when it was just a mobo prob, they told me it was standard procedure for any service. Upon further thought I now recall that this was just weeks after that same system had had its powersupply die and the CO was talking about how it had a new HD after he got it back. They reimaged the HD for that repair as well.
Oh and how can I ever forget the pain of the webfilter they used. Since when should http://www.joecartoon.com be blocked? Sure it's tasteless, thats why I wanted to go there. ;) What better way to deal with the stresses of military life than nuking hamsters?
Then there was the problems with some specialized systems we ran on the classified network. My unit had people scattered around all the bases in the US sector of Bosnia. We were to implement the use of a new integrated system. Problem was the six shop was never able to figure out how to get the systems to be able to see each other over the WAN.
This was a system that had supposedly been thoroughly vetted on state-side setups of the same network we were on, but evidently nobody had ever tried getting the systems to talk to each other from seperate locations through the encryption systems. As the network was based on the everpresent M$ exhcange server systems, I could find the remote systems in the My Network area. But the network people could (or would) never figure out what ports the systems needed open for the specialized apps to communicate, and of course I wasn't authorized to install any tools to determine the ports needed. At the end of our six months the systems were still not being used as designed because they couldn't talk to each other.
Other aspects of the IT environment I've seen are also of note.
About three years ago someone in my Guard unit got so upset with the lack of automation we had to work with that he solicited a donation of older systems from his employer. Even then the best systems in the unit were the three 266Mhz Compaq presario notebooks we the unit had received in 97. When t
The MS mice I've had (Two in the last seven years) just feel sturdier, and the first one's ball took alot longer to get so gunked that it would get hard to control. My current one is an optical and I have had absolutely zero complaints about it.
It Rocks.
I won't even look at, or even more importantly recommend any other brands of mice currently.
Just a recomendation, but you might consider switching to non-children's medicines next time your youngest gets sick.
Then even though I had followed all the steps to clean it off, Including verifying that the registry key was cleared and that the msblast.exe was deleted, I was still getting the shutdowns. I'd also like to note that I was able to be online for a while without a crash if I avoided using any MS internet software. using Opera and Mozilla I was able to stay on long enough to dl the updates and cleaner tools
Interesting this point should be made as I was talking about this with a friend the other day. He's a detail finisher (the guy who puts in the sideboards stairsteps and bannisters in new houses as well as other carpentry) He is very good at what he does, and has absolutely no need to use a computer in that field of work. However he noted to me that he had decided he wanted to learn about computers.
He ran into the problems when he went looking for somewhere to learn some basics. He was taking some classes at the local university and looked into their intro to computer classes. They were assuming a greater base knowledge than he has. Even just a couple years ago he would have an easy time finding beginning level classes at the appropriate level. Now it's alot harder. The Schools are assuming all the incoming students have grown up with computers in their schools if not at home as well. A rather flawed assumption IMHO, maybe in another decade, but a big part of the dot-com bubble was due to people getting their first computers and getting online, and not enough time has passed for the general level of knowledge the colelges are assuming to spread. I advised him to check the local HS Adult Education courses and promised to help him some myself.
On the tech support issue, I played the tech support game myself till I didn't prove to be enough of a drone. I'd rather fix the problem than follow the script. It's probably just pride but I considered myself very good at it.
I've also (who hasn't) had to call tech support and have connected to both good and bad. The good ones are obvious as they tend to listen to my explanations of what diagnostics I've already done, whereas the drones will tune me out till I'm done and then start at line one of their scripts. As if the Dell Diagnostic CD will be able to fix a dead MoBo. ;)
So both sides can be very frustrating. However if the industry wouldn't drive away the real techs, I'm of the Opinion that the frustration levels on both ends would be greatly reduced. And there are few rushes as good as walking an extreme novice through a very complex and difficult repair.
This subject is not crap, and such allegations and biases against those who are seriously introverted, are why such books as this need to be published. Said biases are not intentional but do exist. In my own experience, I've seen idiotic extroverts get promoted over very intelligent and much more capable introverts. The Extroverts do a much better job of kissing up (even if they aren't doing it on purpose) than the Introverts do.
The managers look and see the Extro constantly working with others and thinks, "gee that person may be PHB material." Meanwhile it's the Introvert who has been noted to grumble when interrupted (thus obviously not a team player,) who actually gets most of the real work done.
Granted this is by no means an absolute, but I've seen it. It's even happened to me, not quite the scenario describe above but close enough.
Great point, and I'd like to throw in my personal observations from being deployed to the Balkans by Uncle Sam (both to Bosnia and to Kosovo) The Balkans regions have very low average incomes (about $1200 US a year in Kosovo and slghtly more in Bosnia) Now take that low income level, combine it with a universal love of music and see how well bootleg CD's are going to sell verses how many $15 CD's are going to get sold.
Instead they buy the very available bootleg versions for around $1.50 to $2.50 US per disk, the price range depends on what the people can afford. In addition the bootleggers love to make mixes. And those are even better buys cause then you can find all the hits of your favorite group on a one or two (or more if needed) disk set at the cost of about $2.00 per disk.
Per disk is a key phrase as well as that is how the CD's are priced, be they Music or Software. Want the complete set of the latest release of M$ Office, it's usually on four disks, so it'll set you back a whopping $16. And as Myopicman quoted, the MP3 disks can be amazing with how much they'll stuff on them. Though they often come with autorun programs that are in Russian or some other Slavic language. In addition bad rips are very common. On regular music CD's it's easy to listen through a disk and determine if there are problems, and most shops will allow you to trade faulty disks with no questions. However, an MP3 disk can contain so many hours of music, it's a more time consuming task to determine if the disk is worth taking back. If the disk is good though they usually do include jpegs of the album covers, lyrics and trivia about the albums and the group.
It gets even better, while on the Kosovo deployment I was actually stationed in Macedonia at the rear support base. The local police asked us to call them whenever anyone would try to set up and sell CD's right outside the base. It wasn't becasue they cared about the Cd's being bootlegged, it was that someone setting up a roadside stand like that wasn't paying taxes, as opposed to the MANY established shops that did pay taxes and were thus allowed to sell at will. One other item of interest that I noted, almost the only full price CD's that did sell well were of local (ie Macedonian) groups and singers, and those were still cheaper than anything from the west.
And yes I'll be honest to admit that I brought back a nice collection of music and software. US Customs doesn't care about CD's as long as it doesn't appear that you have multiple copies of each CD i.e. you're not planning on selling them back in the states.
As I Read this and one of the replies to this comment, it occured to me that although I do consider myself somewhat of a Patriot. And the difference between a Patriot and a Terrorist can be merely the semantics of which side of any armed dispute your on. Based on that fact, which is part of the definition of what makes someone a terrorist, I would have to answer yes to that question. I serve in the US Army, and am quite certain that Mr. Hussein considers all american soldiers terrorists.
My point is that, that question is a very bad one to ask people. They may as well ask "Are you a citizen of a country that has any dispute with any other country or group in the world?"
When is M$ going to release the patch with those features, or perhaps built in Bayesian filtering on Outlook and Outlook express? And, in my mind the Piece de Resitance, Pop-up blocking. The number one reason to stay away from and advise friends and family away from IE is it's inability to block pop-ups.
Currently it seems to me that M$ is asleep at the wheel and may be in for a rude awakening as word of the other browsers gets spread. Plus the minor fact that the other browsers have nowhere near the history of vulnerabilities as IE.
Just one Question, do you ship to APO's? If not Why not? If yes, thankyou.
In the last three years I've been deployed to the Balkans twice by the US Army. I go nowhere without my laptop. But good luck trying to get updated software or Accessories, As the original article mentioned Amazon will at least sell books and movies, but little else.
The last time I deployed I had just purchased a new laptop, and realized after I was enroute that Norton System Tools 2002 did not support the XP the system ran, so I tried to order Norton System Tools 2003. Nobody would ship it, and it the PX didn't stock it. I ended up ordering it to my home and having my family send it to me. The same issue came up when I decided I wanted an ergonomic keyboard. Unable to ship the Norton, I could kind of understand as there maybe some export restirctions for some reason, but a funky shaped keyboard? And I have to note that all this stuff was being sent to my APO address. All I should have had to do was find companies that used the US Postal Service as all APO's are treated as stateside mail addresses. No Luck and again the Post Exchange(PX) system's lousy tech selection didn't help me either. Supposedly anything I want the PX has it online, right. At least Amazon would send my books and most important my DVD's quickly. (Hint to anyone deployed or looking at getting deployed, when ordering to an APO select the cheapest shipping option, they automatically upgrade it to first class mail at no charge.)
Try to order something of an electronic or software nature to an overseas address. Most online retailers have their systems set up to serve only the US and maybe Canada. They aren't limiting to trouble countries like Hungary, they usually won't even give any shipping option or purchase option outside the US, not even to APO's which are legally considered stateside addresses.
Again as I said above, I can understand it if the merchants are forced to balk on some items with export restrictions such as encryption restrictions. However, instead they have made it a blanket blockage on items that don't fall into those categories.
Okay you say, but I've just mentioned difficulties with APO addresses using US mail, and what about other forms of shipping. So add the higher shipping charges as necessary. UPS, DHL FEDEX and other shippers do ship overseas. I will grant some difficulties due to customs tarrifs, but wonder how much a burden that really is considering how widespead the aformentioned delivery companies's operations are.
Determining the shipping charges may take some additional time, but thats easy to handle. Simply put into the transaction software a point where the purchaser may have to wait a brief time until the purchase and shipping charges can be confirmed and then emailed to the purchaser with a link back to the purchase to complete the transaction.
In conclusion I agree with the Original Article, in this day of international commerce and the World Wide Web why can't we get basic electronics software and computers and components shipped overseas?
What????, You mean there are other ways to update my Linux distro, other than manually retyping every line of code each time there is an update?
Ahh but the the realm of Counter Terrorism perfection is not required. This is a case of hardening the target. (and much more effective than anything we have to go through at the airports these days is). The system does not have to be absolutely impervious, just really hard to crack.
Every additional bit of training the terrorists have to go through in order to be able to crack the system, makes it that much less likely a target for them. Now not only do they have to be trained well enough to fly the planes, now they have to bring along an avionics engineer who knows how to access the "Softwall" system and disable it.
Terrorists will look for the softer target. That is why they chose planes with small passenger loads, fewer people to try to resist them, (and that precaution failed them on flt 93.) This sytem sounds great to me, as someone else has noted it can be interfaced with the anti-collision systems currently in use to allow a temporary break of the "Wall", so that remote risk is alleviated.
As to the usage of excepted planes. Lets conduct a test. Why don't you go and try to board any Military Aircraft you can find. Just walk right up to it and hop aboard. Once the SP's and MP's finish with you, you can come back share with us how "Easy it was". The Military takes care of it's aircraft. When on the tarmac, you don't want to do anything to piss off the Air Farce Security Police (the previously mentioned SP's). And for your sake and the sake of our "Test" I hope you don't choose an aircraft loaded with nuclear weapons, they tend to shoot first and ask questions later with those.
And as to the originating from another country, well that is a slight risk, but as the major manufacturers of Air craft are in the US and Europe, getting it in all new aircraft is easy, and we have simple things called Laws that we can use to ban all unequipped Commercial aircraft from US airspace. The FAA does it quite regularly with other safety features that have been implemented.
Those planes that don't get upgraded, don't enter our airspace legally. Thus the entrance of such an aircraft into our Airspace would be a major red flag which would automatically prompt more attention than any terrorists would want.
Oh I'm sure a few sites will be defaced by the kiddies, but it won't amount to any serious damage. And if they choose to target the /. enemies (RIAA, MPAA, etc ... more power to them.