Run WinObj. Find the symlink to the drive. Change the ACL.
WinObj is a third-party utility from sysinternals that bypasses Win32, using the (somewhat undocumented) native NT API to view an modify NT kernel objects.
I used it to find the symlink for G: (a cf card) under "GLOBAL??" -- the "security" tab showed that execute permssion was not enabled ("allow" not checked") for Administrators, Everyone, RESTRICTED or SYSTEM. So, I copied winobj.exe to g: and double-clicked it in Explorer. It ran.
I then chose "deny execute" for Administrators and Everyone. It still ran.
This is the difference. It is easy to print more money, difficult to create gold. By backing papermoney with gold, the government can't just create money any which way. As long as inflation is held in check some other way, the currency doesn't have to be backed by gold.
You're exactly right. The gold standard was an historical accident, more or less. It ended up being gold because gold is pretty and very durable (it doesn't rust away, even though it's soft). Money could be backed by any commodity and achieve the same effect as the gold standard. The key, as you said, is that the government can't simply turn on the presses and create more gold. If the dollar were backed by turkey feathers, it would have a similar effect -- the government couldn't simply wish more turkey feathers into existence. Since 1913, inflation is being somewhat held in check by the Federal Reserve. The bankers who created the Fed realized the importance of stable money, but also wanted to be able to turn on the press ("increase liquidity") when it suited them. The Fed isn't perfect. So far, they've controlled the value of money much less reliably than the gold standard did, and contributed to (and perhaps even caused) the great depression. But that's not been total fuckups either. People have called Alan Greenspan a "central planner extraordinaire" because for years he did such a good job of tinkering with the market that the dollar was relatively stable and inflation was kept low and positive. What's the Fed's primary concern? You read about it in the papers all the time: inflation. The Fed took us off the Gold Standard and put us on the Meat Standard. In (certain) Men We Trust.
The idea that gold has some kind of magic inherent value, difficult to "tinker with", strikes me as just plain weird.
As it should. It's not about Gold having any inherent value. Nothing has any inherent value. The only value anything has is a market value -- the whatever another person is willing to pay for it (putting aside things like "sentimental value").
You would do far better to use, say, platinum instead of gold.
Actually, no. Why? Because Platinum has lots of genuine industrial uses. Why tie up a useful metal in coinage?
And no, I don't think people will refuse to accept paper money if inflation rises above some arbitrary level of "a few percent at most". As if they had a real alternative.
Yeah, that's why the citizens of countries with runaway inflation start trafficking in dollars, yen, etc. Note also that the governments of those countries, at some point after massive inflation starts, change the currency. "The NEW Peso!" etc. The the currency loses its value, people stop using it.
multiple tens of percent, or even 100+ percent - for multiyear periods - and those countries did not abandon paper money.
You're being disingenuous. Thouse countries didn't abandon paper money, of course. They abandoned their paper money in favor of a different paper money. Paper money is useful because it's light, transportable and anonymous. It's good technology in those respects. But, there has to be a guarantee of its value for it to be convertable back into goods and services. Once upon a time, paper money -- bank notes -- were tickets payable in gold deposits. It was easier to leave the heavy gold in one place and trade a lightweight ticket. The "bankers" (really just goldsmiths with vaults at the time) invented "fractional reserve banking" by issuing more tickets than they had gold. This worked until all the people with tickets attempted to get their gold. U.S. Dollars were the new paper tickets.
Some, for a while, were even convertible into gold and silver on demand by the bearer. Nowadays, that's not true.
very regulation is an affront to the ideal of a purely capitalistic marketplace.
That's not true. I think you may be confusing anarchy with capitalism. Capitalism requires a government to enfore contracts, ownership of property, and establish and maintain a "level playing field" for the market. A "free market" isn't a government-less market. It's just a market where there are no subsidies and/or special priviledges, and where people can expect contracts to be enforced by a neutral third party.
The problem with inflation-based government financing is there is no concession to reality. When a government taxes, it cannot tax at a rate higher its citizens can withstand. When the government prints funny money -- inflates the currency -- it is much less visible to the average person, and the government has less restraint imposed on it. The outcome of inflation-based government financing is always catastrophic inflation followed by total collapse. People buying bread with wheelbarrows full of cash, etc.
Money has utility only if it has a reliable value. This is why people liked the Gold Standard -- it was a value that was very hard to tinker with. It was objective -- one could weigh the gold pieces and determine the value directly. With fiat money, it's based on trust and future production (e.g., debt-based). The only thing allowing people to continue to accept paper/fiat money is a relatively stable value. In other words, free of inflation and deflation at too great a value (more that a few percent at most).
The Romans, the Roman Empire and the civilizations that followed it all used gold -- for more than 800 years, the same coins were circulated. The money system of Europe was largely independant from governments. The colonies that would become the U.S., in their early days, used paper money and suffered from periodic rampant inflation and economic collapse. The founders specified a national currency composed of gold and silver to make it more objective, and less subject to tampering. They learned from the Romans.
The establishment of the "Federal" Reserve "Bank" (it's not really Federal and it's not really a Bank) effectively took the U.S. off the gold standard. FDR and Nixon both siezed private gold stocks. Nixon finally gave up the fiction of a gold-backed dollar.
The U.S. now has a fiat-based money, and a number of other countries have a dollar-based currency. The Bretton Woods arrangement effectively anchored international finance on the U.S. dollar. At the time, the dollar was nominally gold-backed. It is no longer, but the Bretton Woods arrangement survives anyway. Now, dollars are convertible into dollars, and other currencies are convertible into dollars.
The upshot is, inflation-based financing means the government gets to take as much as it wants, whenever it wants, and the citizenry can't see it happen, object to it, or even stop it (usually). It's a railway to economic collapse.
1) I don't think "there was a patch before there was a worm" is true. Other than a statement my Microsoft, which lacks credibility because of its source, what proof do you have to offer?
2) Even Microsoft gets hit by these things. I guess they're "just too stupid to run the fucking update process." What hope does that leave for people who don't work at the company that makes both the buggy OS and its patches?
MacOSX does need mapping software in a big way. I have an MSDN subscription (/me ducks thrown fruit), which comes with a MapPoint DVD. It's not a bad mapping program (better than StreetFinder, what a POS), although the GPS capabilities are only rudimentary. I'd like to see something like it on the Mac.
I wonder if anyone has taken a crack at the MapPoint data file format...
This is very easy to do on Windows. You just deny execute permissions - you can do it for users or groups, and on whole directory trees/filesystems.
Can you post a link to instructions? What scenarios does the restriction cover? For instance, does it prevent only ".exe", or does it extend to ".vbs" and the like?
Even if Windows XP offers this capability, execute permission is on by default and implied by the filename. The latter is not configurable.
Well, the interpreter (/bin/sh) could check the script file for execute permission, and that might be an improvement.
However, what you're saying is beside the point... running "/bin/sh./script" is not the same as running "./script".
When you run "/bin/sh./script" -- you're actually running/bin/sh and telling it to load "./script".
On Windows that's not required -- windows will try to run files all by itself, just by asking outlook or I.R. to open the attachment, double-clicking in explorer, typing its name, referencing it in "shell" command, etc.
A little windows background: it's set up to automatically run lots of programs, whether they are directly executable code or scripts of some type.
"open a.py file in KDE and it will execute" -- well, no, it won't -- unless it's been given permission to execute.
Your point: "THE LINUX DESKTOPS HAVE THE EXACT SAME VULNERABILITIES."
Linux desktops do not have the same vulnerability. I do not know of a single Linux distro anywhere that assigns permission to execute based on a file's name.
You said: "the Linux virus writers (when they get warmed up) are probably going to be sticking to Perl or Python as their virus language of choice."
They can write all the Perl and Python viruses they want -- if the scripts cannot be executed by merely viewing them in an email client, clicking on the attachment in an email client, saving and then double clicking on the attachment, etc. -- they will not run, not infect, and not spread. The user has to save the attachement on a filesystem with execute permission unrestricted, give it execute permission, and then run it.
They paid $0, but the article is really good P.R. for them, in as much as it's pointing out the truth about Microsoft products.
Thankfully, one doesn't have to pay or this kind of coverage, or complain about the "windows friendly" computer coverage in the mainstream press, because the mainstream press is starting to see the light. Surely you have noticed that news outlets are now typically reporting viruses and worms using terms such as "Windows Virus," or "Windows software flaw," etc. -- rather than using their previous generic terms, such as "email virus" or "computer virus."
Yeah, well, quibble with the words all you'd like. The way Windows is "designed" is inherently insecure, and probably impossible to make secure. To paraphrase Nader, "Windows is unsafe at any speed."
You know, it would be nice to see Nader promote non-Microsoft software (such as Linux) as good for the economy, good for security, good for control abd accountbility (think government systems such as voting machines), and good for Freedon and Democracy. Using that slogan: "Windows -- unsafe at any speed."
To paraphrase Bush II, "There are just some people... in Redmond... some people who... hate freedom."
I did an strace of a (brand new, designed-for-XP) program on Windows XP recently. The program changes the mouse cursor when you mouse over certain UI features. According to strace, Windows XP uses WOW (windows-on-windows -- Win16 emulation!) to do this. To this day. In their latest operating system release. Sheesh. The Win32 call thunks down to Win16 emulation, even on XP. How busted is that.
Plus, windows thinks that just because a file's name ends in ".exe" or some other magical combination of letters, that it's a program and should be loaded and run. Over here on my Linux systems, I can deny execute permission to entire filesystems (such as users' home directories), and in any case, Linux doesn't assign every random attachment and download execute permission by default.
Do you think we should write an article that claims that Henry Ford invented the automobile as a device to kill people 'by design'?
No, that would be the same as saying "Operating systems are insecure by design." What the article says is, "Windows is insecure by design." This is like saying "the Suzuki Samurai is unsafe by design." Damned thing tips over way too easy.
Here's an example I posted elsewhere about Windows being "insecure by design":
Well, he could have mentioned a true "Insecure by Design" flaw in Windows: the fact that Windows determines that a file is executable based on its *name*. If a file ends in.exe,.vbs,.bat,.scr, or one of lots of other extensions, Windows assumes it's executable and will load and run it when the user clicks on it. Or a "shell" command references it, etc.
On Unix and unix-like systems, one has to explicitly mark a file as executable before ths OS will try to run it, and it's even possible to deny the "execute" permission to an entire filesystem (for instance, users' read-write home directories).
Well, he could have mentioned a true "Insecure by Design" flaw in Windows: the fact that Windows determines that a file is executable based on its *name*. If a file ends in.exe,.vbs,.bat,.scr, or one of lots of other extensions, Windows assumes it's executable and will load and run it when the user clicks on it. Or a "shell" command references it, etc.
On Unix and unix-like systems, one has to explicitly mark a file as executable before ths OS will try to run it, and it's even possible to deny the "execute" permission to an entire filesystem (for instance, users' read-write home directories).
Some moderator marked this as "troll" -- when it is simply factual. It would be interesting if Slash showed the hostname/IP address of the poster, and the moderator(s). I'll bet the "troll" moderation came from... just guessing here....microsoft.com.
do you know what saves MS Word documents even better? MS Word.
Actually, this isn't true. I regularly recover MS Word 2000 documents using OpenOffice. Word creates files it later cannot read back in on a fairly regular basis, and OpenOffice seems to be able to read them, even when Word can't.
1. Create document in MS-Word
2. Save document
3. Try to re-open document. Word crashes, refuses to read it, or similar
4. Open document with Openoffice Writer
5. Remove corrupted text (thanks, Word!)
6. Save back to Word format
7. User can continue using Word if he chooses, with this file again
OpenOffice has a better Word Import Filter than MS-Word does. As an added bonus, opening a Word or Excel document in OpenOffice and saving it in OO format -- without changing anything -- results in a smaller file that is also standards-based. Plus, one can export to PDF directly. Practical experience has shown my office staff that OpenOffice produces PDFs more reliably than MS-Office+Acrobat.
... sync with iSync, and sync with something on Linux.
I wonder if "Opie" will make an appearance in commercial hardware anytime soon... it started as a fork of the QTopia environment, and is coming along nicely. It would be really cool to have Opie become the standard palmtop environment.
do you know what saves MS Word documents even better? MS Word.
Actually, this isn't true. I regularly recover MS Word 2000 documents using OpenOffice. Word creates files it later cannot read back in on a fairly regular basis, and OpenOffice seems to be able to read them, even when Word can't.
Create document in MS-Word
Save document
Try to re-open document. Word crashes, refuses to read it, or similar
Open document with Openoffice Writer
Remove corrupted text (thanks, Word!)
Save back to Word format
User can continue using Word if he chooses, with this file again
OpenOffice has a better Word Import Filter than MS-Word does. As an added bonus, opening a Word or Excel document in OpenOffice and saving it in OO format -- without changing anything -- results in a smaller file that is also standards-based. Plus, one can export to PDF directly. Practical experience has shown my office staff that OpenOffice produces PDFs more reliably than MS-Office+Acrobat.
better than the American software we have currently the chances of us making the best software in the world are slim
Oh, hi, Hanzo. You could change your name, and I'd still know it was you.
theres no way we can debate this
Uh, sure there is!
Just like with the car industry
Hmmm. Yeah. Those Chinese cars are great! They're outselling the Japanese, Korean, European and U.S. made cars, world-wide! Consumer reports loves them!
Dean for President! Think Economy, Stupid!
Nah. A Chinese President would be so much better that what our political industry could produce. There's no way we can debate this! The chances of us making the best President are slim!
Slashdot Mirror
WinObj is a third-party utility from sysinternals that bypasses Win32, using the (somewhat undocumented) native NT API to view an modify NT kernel objects.
I used it to find the symlink for G: (a cf card) under "GLOBAL??" -- the "security" tab showed that execute permssion was not enabled ("allow" not checked") for Administrators, Everyone, RESTRICTED or SYSTEM. So, I copied winobj.exe to g: and double-clicked it in Explorer. It ran.
I then chose "deny execute" for Administrators and Everyone. It still ran.
Mmm.hmm.
This is the difference. It is easy to print more money, difficult to create gold. By backing papermoney with gold, the government can't just create money any which way. As long as inflation is held in check some other way, the currency doesn't have to be backed by gold.
You're exactly right. The gold standard was an historical accident, more or less. It ended up being gold because gold is pretty and very durable (it doesn't rust away, even though it's soft). Money could be backed by any commodity and achieve the same effect as the gold standard. The key, as you said, is that the government can't simply turn on the presses and create more gold. If the dollar were backed by turkey feathers, it would have a similar effect -- the government couldn't simply wish more turkey feathers into existence. Since 1913, inflation is being somewhat held in check by the Federal Reserve. The bankers who created the Fed realized the importance of stable money, but also wanted to be able to turn on the press ("increase liquidity") when it suited them. The Fed isn't perfect. So far, they've controlled the value of money much less reliably than the gold standard did, and contributed to (and perhaps even caused) the great depression. But that's not been total fuckups either. People have called Alan Greenspan a "central planner extraordinaire" because for years he did such a good job of tinkering with the market that the dollar was relatively stable and inflation was kept low and positive. What's the Fed's primary concern? You read about it in the papers all the time: inflation. The Fed took us off the Gold Standard and put us on the Meat Standard. In (certain) Men We Trust.
The idea that gold has some kind of magic inherent value, difficult to "tinker with", strikes me as just plain weird.
As it should. It's not about Gold having any inherent value. Nothing has any inherent value. The only value anything has is a market value -- the whatever another person is willing to pay for it (putting aside things like "sentimental value").
You would do far better to use, say, platinum instead of gold.
Actually, no. Why? Because Platinum has lots of genuine industrial uses. Why tie up a useful metal in coinage?
And no, I don't think people will refuse to accept paper money if inflation rises above some arbitrary level of "a few percent at most". As if they had a real alternative.
Yeah, that's why the citizens of countries with runaway inflation start trafficking in dollars, yen, etc. Note also that the governments of those countries, at some point after massive inflation starts, change the currency. "The NEW Peso!" etc. The the currency loses its value, people stop using it.
multiple tens of percent, or even 100+ percent - for multiyear periods - and those countries did not abandon paper money.
You're being disingenuous. Thouse countries didn't abandon paper money, of course. They abandoned their paper money in favor of a different paper money. Paper money is useful because it's light, transportable and anonymous. It's good technology in those respects. But, there has to be a guarantee of its value for it to be convertable back into goods and services. Once upon a time, paper money -- bank notes -- were tickets payable in gold deposits. It was easier to leave the heavy gold in one place and trade a lightweight ticket. The "bankers" (really just goldsmiths with vaults at the time) invented "fractional reserve banking" by issuing more tickets than they had gold. This worked until all the people with tickets attempted to get their gold. U.S. Dollars were the new paper tickets.
Some, for a while, were even convertible into gold and silver on demand by the bearer. Nowadays, that's not true.
very regulation is an affront to the ideal of a purely capitalistic marketplace.
That's not true. I think you may be confusing anarchy with capitalism. Capitalism requires a government to enfore contracts, ownership of property, and establish and maintain a "level playing field" for the market. A "free market" isn't a government-less market. It's just a market where there are no subsidies and/or special priviledges, and where people can expect contracts to be enforced by a neutral third party.
The problem with inflation-based government financing is there is no concession to reality. When a government taxes, it cannot tax at a rate higher its citizens can withstand. When the government prints funny money -- inflates the currency -- it is much less visible to the average person, and the government has less restraint imposed on it. The outcome of inflation-based government financing is always catastrophic inflation followed by total collapse. People buying bread with wheelbarrows full of cash, etc.
Money has utility only if it has a reliable value. This is why people liked the Gold Standard -- it was a value that was very hard to tinker with. It was objective -- one could weigh the gold pieces and determine the value directly. With fiat money, it's based on trust and future production (e.g., debt-based). The only thing allowing people to continue to accept paper/fiat money is a relatively stable value. In other words, free of inflation and deflation at too great a value (more that a few percent at most).
The Romans, the Roman Empire and the civilizations that followed it all used gold -- for more than 800 years, the same coins were circulated. The money system of Europe was largely independant from governments. The colonies that would become the U.S., in their early days, used paper money and suffered from periodic rampant inflation and economic collapse. The founders specified a national currency composed of gold and silver to make it more objective, and less subject to tampering. They learned from the Romans.
The establishment of the "Federal" Reserve "Bank" (it's not really Federal and it's not really a Bank) effectively took the U.S. off the gold standard. FDR and Nixon both siezed private gold stocks. Nixon finally gave up the fiction of a gold-backed dollar.
The U.S. now has a fiat-based money, and a number of other countries have a dollar-based currency. The Bretton Woods arrangement effectively anchored international finance on the U.S. dollar. At the time, the dollar was nominally gold-backed. It is no longer, but the Bretton Woods arrangement survives anyway. Now, dollars are convertible into dollars, and other currencies are convertible into dollars.
The upshot is, inflation-based financing means the government gets to take as much as it wants, whenever it wants, and the citizenry can't see it happen, object to it, or even stop it (usually). It's a railway to economic collapse.
1) I don't think "there was a patch before there was a worm" is true. Other than a statement my Microsoft, which lacks credibility because of its source, what proof do you have to offer?
2) Even Microsoft gets hit by these things. I guess they're "just too stupid to run the fucking update process." What hope does that leave for people who don't work at the company that makes both the buggy OS and its patches?
John Mason: Are you sure you're ready for this?
Stanley Goodspeed: I'll do my best.
John Mason: Your best? Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117500/quotes
On another note, when will Microsoft's OSes stop thinking that ".exe" at the end of a filename means "go ahead, run me?"
MacOSX does need mapping software in a big way. I have an MSDN subscription (/me ducks thrown fruit), which comes with a MapPoint DVD. It's not a bad mapping program (better than StreetFinder, what a POS), although the GPS capabilities are only rudimentary. I'd like to see something like it on the Mac.
I wonder if anyone has taken a crack at the MapPoint data file format...
This is very easy to do on Windows. You just deny execute permissions - you can do it for users or groups, and on whole directory trees/filesystems.
Can you post a link to instructions? What scenarios does the restriction cover? For instance, does it prevent only ".exe", or does it extend to ".vbs" and the like?
Even if Windows XP offers this capability, execute permission is on by default and implied by the filename. The latter is not configurable.
Well, the interpreter (/bin/sh) could check the script file for execute permission, and that might be an improvement.
./script" is not the same as running "./script".
./script" -- you're actually running /bin/sh and telling it to load "./script".
However, what you're saying is beside the point... running "/bin/sh
When you run "/bin/sh
On Windows that's not required -- windows will try to run files all by itself, just by asking outlook or I.R. to open the attachment, double-clicking in explorer, typing its name, referencing it in "shell" command, etc.
On Windows, ".???" means "excecutable."
Windows also allows you to deny execute permission to entire filesystems.
Perhaps you'd like to post instructions, so all of your readers can make their systems safer.
You're just wrong.
.py file in KDE and it will execute" -- well, no, it won't -- unless it's been given permission to execute.
A little windows background: it's set up to automatically run lots of programs, whether they are directly executable code or scripts of some type.
"open a
Your point: "THE LINUX DESKTOPS HAVE THE EXACT SAME VULNERABILITIES."
Linux desktops do not have the same vulnerability. I do not know of a single Linux distro anywhere that assigns permission to execute based on a file's name.
You said: "the Linux virus writers (when they get warmed up) are probably going to be sticking to Perl or Python as their virus language of choice."
They can write all the Perl and Python viruses they want -- if the scripts cannot be executed by merely viewing them in an email client, clicking on the attachment in an email client, saving and then double clicking on the attachment, etc. -- they will not run, not infect, and not spread. The user has to save the attachement on a filesystem with execute permission unrestricted, give it execute permission, and then run it.
Microsoft cares about the security of Windows
.scr ... .scr ... Yep! You're on the list! Let me set up a nice process for you. There you go! Have fun!"
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! *snort*
Uh, yeah. That's the reason it is the way that it is.
Windows: "Hi! I'm the program loader. My user is running as administrator. What's your name?"
Virus: "jsdfkjwer.scr"
Windows: "Let's see...
They paid $0, but the article is really good P.R. for them, in as much as it's pointing out the truth about Microsoft products.
Thankfully, one doesn't have to pay or this kind of coverage, or complain about the "windows friendly" computer coverage in the mainstream press, because the mainstream press is starting to see the light. Surely you have noticed that news outlets are now typically reporting viruses and worms using terms such as "Windows Virus," or "Windows software flaw," etc. -- rather than using their previous generic terms, such as "email virus" or "computer virus."
Yeah, well, quibble with the words all you'd like. The way Windows is "designed" is inherently insecure, and probably impossible to make secure. To paraphrase Nader, "Windows is unsafe at any speed."
You know, it would be nice to see Nader promote non-Microsoft software (such as Linux) as good for the economy, good for security, good for control abd accountbility (think government systems such as voting machines), and good for Freedon and Democracy. Using that slogan: "Windows -- unsafe at any speed."
To paraphrase Bush II, "There are just some people... in Redmond... some people who... hate freedom."
I did an strace of a (brand new, designed-for-XP) program on Windows XP recently. The program changes the mouse cursor when you mouse over certain UI features. According to strace, Windows XP uses WOW (windows-on-windows -- Win16 emulation!) to do this. To this day. In their latest operating system release. Sheesh. The Win32 call thunks down to Win16 emulation, even on XP. How busted is that.
Plus, windows thinks that just because a file's name ends in ".exe" or some other magical combination of letters, that it's a program and should be loaded and run. Over here on my Linux systems, I can deny execute permission to entire filesystems (such as users' home directories), and in any case, Linux doesn't assign every random attachment and download execute permission by default.
No, that would be the same as saying "Operating systems are insecure by design." What the article says is, "Windows is insecure by design." This is like saying "the Suzuki Samurai is unsafe by design." Damned thing tips over way too easy.
Here's an example I posted elsewhere about Windows being "insecure by design":
the article is misleading
Not really.
Well, he could have mentioned a true "Insecure by Design" flaw in Windows: the fact that Windows determines that a file is executable based on its *name*. If a file ends in
On Unix and unix-like systems, one has to explicitly mark a file as executable before ths OS will try to run it, and it's even possible to deny the "execute" permission to an entire filesystem (for instance, users' read-write home directories).
So it seems that they are trying to achieve the very thing they badmouth when OSS touts it: online community support.
Typical.
Its like SCO using Samba, but denigrating the GPL.
We could take up a collection and run a full-page ad in a national newspaper.
Lets see... morning coffee... morning donut... morning SCO story... morning microsoft virus outbreak...
... sync with iSync, and sync with something on Linux.
I wonder if "Opie" will make an appearance in commercial hardware anytime soon... it started as a fork of the QTopia environment, and is coming along nicely. It would be really cool to have Opie become the standard palmtop environment.
Actually, this isn't true. I regularly recover MS Word 2000 documents using OpenOffice. Word creates files it later cannot read back in on a fairly regular basis, and OpenOffice seems to be able to read them, even when Word can't.
OpenOffice has a better Word Import Filter than MS-Word does. As an added bonus, opening a Word or Excel document in OpenOffice and saving it in OO format -- without changing anything -- results in a smaller file that is also standards-based. Plus, one can export to PDF directly. Practical experience has shown my office staff that OpenOffice produces PDFs more reliably than MS-Office+Acrobat.
better than the American software we have currently
... whatever
the chances of us making the best software in the world are slim
Oh, hi, Hanzo. You could change your name, and I'd still know it was you.
theres no way we can debate this
Uh, sure there is!
Just like with the car industry
Hmmm. Yeah. Those Chinese cars are great! They're outselling the Japanese, Korean, European and U.S. made cars, world-wide! Consumer reports loves them!
Dean for President! Think Economy, Stupid!
Nah. A Chinese President would be so much better that what our political industry could produce. There's no way we can debate this! The chances of us making the best President are slim!
Just like with the