Well I have SP2 on a box near me so I gave it a shot. Using Firefox 0.9.2 and entering "shell:windows\explorer.exe" in to the URL bar did nothing. Opening up IE and doing the same caused explorer.exe to open. It doesn't look good. Maybe they will fix it in the final version of SP2? Though I personally don't care since most my time in in Linux. Let the layman suffer : )
Have you tried it? It helps, but is not all that great. For example, file I/O is 10% slower then the base win32 subsystem. telnet over SSH? What is up with that? If your stuck with only MS Windows, then is does help. Though you will always get much better performance from a real Unix or Unix-like OS. It is also not due out until 2008, with the rate that Linux is growing (47% per year), it will have close to 35% or so of the server market by 2008. I do think this is a good thing though. If people pick a base unix like system to program against then it would help increase Apple and Linux sales since the software will always run better under a real posix unix-like OS.
We're going to be seeing Photoshop for Linux any day now.
Ah, nothing like stealing more then $10,000 worth of software and then trying to justify it. It is pretty pathetic. This is why I have ONE copy of Win XP Pro at home and all my other boxes run Fedora. I get the same or better fetures without trying to have to justify stealing.
Current prices according to MS:
XP Pro - $279.99 x 5 = $1,399.95
Server 2003 Ent - $3,999 x 2 = $7,998.00
--------------------
$9,397.95
Yeah, everybody's ignorant because they don't know of an obscure browser they weren't looking for because IE's doing its job satisfactorally for them
If that included infecting 90% of all IE users with spyware, then yes it is doing a great job! Heck, here is an article that states, 92 Percent of Organizations with at Least 100 Employees Have Been Contaminated With Spyware. You can be pretty sure that these organizations with 100+ employees have some tech guy around. So if they cannot keep crappy IE from putting spyware on a computer, how in the world is average Joe User going to prevent it? Spyware is only one of the problems with IE. Every non-tech users computer that I have looked at that uses IE, has had their home page stolen and their default search engine changed. Not to mention the tons of pr0n dialers and other crap that attack the average IE user. Stop being an MS apologist.
Doesn't Apple require this either Apple or a "certified" Apple dealer do repairs? I also read that Volkswagen requires "special" oil or you can void the warranty. Note: I have no direct experience with these two, so it could possibly be just rumors.
How in the world would someone steal milk? Would they sneak on to a farm and run off with a cow? Do they sneak on to the farm with a few pails and start milkin'? Or do they just run out of a store with a few gallons of milk in their hands?
Do some math. The article said that the stats are for about 30,000,000 users. 1% of 30,000,000 = 300,000. 300,000 new mozilla/firefox users is not a bad gain for one month!
i don't want microsoft logging into my machine to do it either. all network software has bugs and requires updates. just like cars need an oil change every once in a while. if you don't know how to safely operate the product you are using, there are going to be problems.
Who says they would have to? People with the technical know-how can do it themselves, others can get the repairs done. Just as with cars, you can pay to get your oil changed or do it yourself for less. Also just like cars, if there is a major issue, then the maker is responsible to pay to have it fixed, and this how it should be for MS. Minor maintenence of a computer should be the responsiblity of the consumer, howerver the consumer should have some place to go to get major faults fixed at the expense of MS. Imagine if Ford put out a car with a faulty transmission and then turned around and expected their customers to pay for a new transmission and install it themselves. This is what MS does to their customers.
I think you are being short sighted. Every other industry functions this way, except for software. There are not people going around being sue happy against those other industries. yes I do think there are too many lawsuits, but that is another topic. If I buy a DVD player, the maker is responsible to a certain extent. Software should be no different. Obviously there would need to be laws to protect from abuse. For example, you would not be able to sue for $1,000,000 for a $29 piece of software.
Casual developers would disappear overnight
That is just silly. Casual developers that release their software for no fee (open or closed source) would not be liable, again only paid for software. Why should every other industry be liable to a certain extent for their products except for the software industry? It doesn't make sense and it certainly has not caused prices to go lower.
If he bought a Ford and by DEFAULT the radio only played the Ford station, but could easily be changed if one wanted to.
Yes, however that Ford Radio(tm) had no dials so Ford owners had no easy way to know that there are other stations. Also, for the more technical that do find out about other stations, when they go to remove their Ford Radio(tm), they find out that only the face plate can be removed and the radio itself must stay, otherwise the engine won't start.
Why not? They could at least have a page with alternatives. Apple does it. They have links for Opera, Mozilla and other browsers even though Apple makes their own called Safari. Linux does it as well. Most Linux distros give you tons of choices about browsers. What makes it worse for MS is not only did they keep the fact about alternative browsers from end-users, they also went and made proprietary extensions to lock consumers into their own browser. So they could make proprietary development tools to lock you in, which locks you into their desktop, which locks you into their server, which locks you into their webserver, etc, etc. All of MS's core products were designed to keep you in their products only. This over-intergration for lockin has caused MS to dig their own hole. Now all these bad choices are coming back to bite them. Let MS deal with their own mess, though sadly, it also affects the majority of the IT industry and the rest of us often get handed the "MS Mop(tm)".
Exactly how should consumers know about the next potential MS exploit so that they could make an informed choice about the quality of a product? I owned a Ford Ranger truck a few years ago. There was a recall because of bad tires. I was sent a letter and I made an appointment at a local mechanic shop. I took in the truck and all four tires were replaced BY THE TECH. Ford didn't call me up and tell me to go and pick up the four tires and install them myself. Yet this is exactly what MS expects consumers to do. The average consumer has no clue about computer technology besides basic usage. Just as I am not a mechanic nor do I have to be one to get my bad tires fixed. If MS had to do the equivalent of what auto makers have to do for faulty products they would be required to notify every registered user and pay for them to take the computer to a repair shop to be fixed.
This has nothing to do with personal responsibility. If I purchased a DVD player that had bad wiring that could start a fire, would I be required to take it apart and solder myself? What if the DVD player were just defective? I still would not be required to fix it. The maker or a tech would do it at the makers expense. Liability for paid-for software should be no different. Note: paid-for software does not include closed sourced software that is free of charge. Basically, if you pay for a product, the maker of that product should be financially responsible to a certain extent.
If you have to pay for a product, then the seller should be held liable to a certain extent. For example, WinAmp is closed/proprietary, however you can download it for free and thus the owners of WinAmp (AOL?) would not be liable for damages done by that SPECIFIC application. If you buy the pro-version of WinAmp and a bug fries your data, then the owners of WinAmp (AOL?) should be liable (to a certain monetary amount, say up to 5X the product cost) for damages. If this were the case, then software quality would jump through the roof overnight. Yes, I am a programmer and have no problems with being liable for software I develop IF I CHARGE FOR IT.
Your leaving out a few important points. Ford has a monopoly (that they were convicted for) of 95%+ of all auto sales.
95%+ of all gas stations sell proprietary FORD ONLY gas protected by patents.
95%+ of tire stations sell proprietary FORD ONLY tires protected by patents.
95%+ of mechanic shops service FORD ONLY cars
95%+ of of all auto parts stores sell FORD ONLY proprietary parts.
95%+ of etc, etc
This situation was created by Ford because of their illegal monopoly and tactics. The others went were the money is just to survive. If Ford had not been an illegal monopoly and engaged in anti-competitive tactics, competition would have come along and made the market much better overall.
Insightful? Come on mods, you can do better. Mozilla/Firefox is a multi-platform application that runs on: Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, MS Windows and more. If this were truly a bug in Mozilla the application, it would affect Mozilla the application and thus, all OSes. However, that is not the case. It only effects MS Windows. So, exactly how can it be a bug in Mozilla? Mozilla has no idea what this protocol is, so it asks the OS. The other OSes handle it well, while MS Windows allows yet another expliot. I think this is a "swing-n-miss" for 0racle.
Does Circuit City charge a restock fee? I had problems with Best Buy too many times and went to CompUSA for a digital camera. There was no way for me to actaully see the quality before I purchased. After getting it home, I didn't like it and wanted to EXCHANGE it for another model. CompUSA wanted to charge me a 15% restocking fee, even though I wanted a more expensive model! It took a lot of complaining to get out of that fee. I won't ever buy from CompUSA again and only buy very cheap items at Best Buy such as a cheep $80 hdd. I am running out of places to go to as a comsumer : ( The only place that seems to put customers over makers and has a good return policy is Walmart. However, Walmart stores do not carry enough mid to high end electronics for my taste.
I agree. If you pay for a product, the company that sells you that product should be liable to a certain extent for the quality of that product.
* Lately, it seems like Apache has become the new Sendmail:D
Why do you say that? Apache powers close to 70% of the web servers yet has not had ONE single episode of an exploit that matched the amount of damage that IIS exploits have done. As far as sendmail, I don't use it so I cannot comment on it. Have there been any major exploits in sendmail? I am not talking about the exploit itself, I am talking about the number of systems that have been compromised by the exploit(s).
All software will have security problems. However, for some reason OSS exploits seem to not cause as much damage or affect as many systems. When you compare that to MS software, their exploits seem to affect tons of systems. I am talking more of server based exploits where MS does not have the same monopoly as they do on the desktop since Linux has around 20% - 25% of the server market and MS has about 50% with the rest spread around various Unix or Novell systems.
Holy smokes batman! I don't know if anyone else read this article, however it says that IE has had 153 holes since 18 April 2001, and 6 this month alone! I knew IE was bad, but that is not even acceptable.
Apache and sendmail can be acquired for zero cost. If one could (legally) get MS Windows XP with IE for zero cost as well, then it would be in the same boat as Apache/sendmail. However, I know that if I spend money on a product, I expect that product to live up to its claimed specifications. Just because MS (and other commercial companies) put crap in their EULA, doesn't mean that those EULA are legal in court and that those commercial companies are not liable due to negligence.
Imagine if you purchased a car from Ford and Ford knew that the brakes had problems and needed to be replaced. However, Ford did not tell you about the brakes and chose not to do a recall because that information is corporate "IP". I am sure you (and many others) would have a case against Ford for negligence if you were in an accident.
This is no differenct the the MS situation. MS has access to their code "IP" and are aware of tons of security problems since MS as a company have not taken security seriously until the last two years or so. However, they are keeping that information from end-users because it is their "IP" and the end-users suffer from it. These problems have cost MS customers billions of dollars in recovery and prevention costs. Those costs you will never see in an MS funded TCO study.
I think you are missing the point. MS keeps patenting all these features, no matter how minor, and all of a sudden Mac OS X and Linux desktops have to either drop tons of features, or spend tons of money on court battles. For Linux, it generally means that the feature will be dropped and end users will have to add it back themselves through patches downloaded from some non-USA site. For Apple, it would mean wasting a bunch of cash fighting MS when they could use that money to make better products. Again, instead of MS competing, they are trying to slime their way through competition through anti-competitive means.
Now installing software on my red hat systems feels like a chore
Um, so why don't you use apt under Red Hat or Fedora? It does the same thing as under Debian and makes installing rpms a breeze. There are plenty of red hat/Fedora apt-rpm repositories out there, a good place to start is FreshRPMS
Slashdot Mirror
No, you can get unofficial Active X for Moz.
Ah, nothing like stealing more then $10,000 worth of software and then trying to justify it. It is pretty pathetic. This is why I have ONE copy of Win XP Pro at home and all my other boxes run Fedora. I get the same or better fetures without trying to have to justify stealing.
Current prices according to MS:
XP Pro - $279.99 x 5 = $1,399.95
Server 2003 Ent - $3,999 x 2 = $7,998.00
--------------------
$9,397.95
If you run winders you can try this. It should allow you to minimize any window to the system tray.
Here are some: Five Years under the DMCA
And here is a link: Lexmark unleashes DMCA on toner cartridge rival
Doesn't Apple require this either Apple or a "certified" Apple dealer do repairs? I also read that Volkswagen requires "special" oil or you can void the warranty. Note: I have no direct experience with these two, so it could possibly be just rumors.
How in the world would someone steal milk? Would they sneak on to a farm and run off with a cow? Do they sneak on to the farm with a few pails and start milkin'? Or do they just run out of a store with a few gallons of milk in their hands?
Do some math. The article said that the stats are for about 30,000,000 users. 1% of 30,000,000 = 300,000. 300,000 new mozilla/firefox users is not a bad gain for one month!
Why not? They could at least have a page with alternatives. Apple does it. They have links for Opera, Mozilla and other browsers even though Apple makes their own called Safari. Linux does it as well. Most Linux distros give you tons of choices about browsers. What makes it worse for MS is not only did they keep the fact about alternative browsers from end-users, they also went and made proprietary extensions to lock consumers into their own browser. So they could make proprietary development tools to lock you in, which locks you into their desktop, which locks you into their server, which locks you into their webserver, etc, etc. All of MS's core products were designed to keep you in their products only. This over-intergration for lockin has caused MS to dig their own hole. Now all these bad choices are coming back to bite them. Let MS deal with their own mess, though sadly, it also affects the majority of the IT industry and the rest of us often get handed the "MS Mop(tm)".
This has nothing to do with personal responsibility. If I purchased a DVD player that had bad wiring that could start a fire, would I be required to take it apart and solder myself? What if the DVD player were just defective? I still would not be required to fix it. The maker or a tech would do it at the makers expense. Liability for paid-for software should be no different. Note: paid-for software does not include closed sourced software that is free of charge. Basically, if you pay for a product, the maker of that product should be financially responsible to a certain extent.
If you have to pay for a product, then the seller should be held liable to a certain extent. For example, WinAmp is closed/proprietary, however you can download it for free and thus the owners of WinAmp (AOL?) would not be liable for damages done by that SPECIFIC application. If you buy the pro-version of WinAmp and a bug fries your data, then the owners of WinAmp (AOL?) should be liable (to a certain monetary amount, say up to 5X the product cost) for damages. If this were the case, then software quality would jump through the roof overnight. Yes, I am a programmer and have no problems with being liable for software I develop IF I CHARGE FOR IT.
95%+ of all gas stations sell proprietary FORD ONLY gas protected by patents.
95%+ of tire stations sell proprietary FORD ONLY tires protected by patents.
95%+ of mechanic shops service FORD ONLY cars
95%+ of of all auto parts stores sell FORD ONLY proprietary parts.
95%+ of etc, etc This situation was created by Ford because of their illegal monopoly and tactics. The others went were the money is just to survive. If Ford had not been an illegal monopoly and engaged in anti-competitive tactics, competition would have come along and made the market much better overall.
Insightful? Come on mods, you can do better. Mozilla/Firefox is a multi-platform application that runs on: Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, MS Windows and more. If this were truly a bug in Mozilla the application, it would affect Mozilla the application and thus, all OSes. However, that is not the case. It only effects MS Windows. So, exactly how can it be a bug in Mozilla? Mozilla has no idea what this protocol is, so it asks the OS. The other OSes handle it well, while MS Windows allows yet another expliot. I think this is a "swing-n-miss" for 0racle.
Does Circuit City charge a restock fee? I had problems with Best Buy too many times and went to CompUSA for a digital camera. There was no way for me to actaully see the quality before I purchased. After getting it home, I didn't like it and wanted to EXCHANGE it for another model. CompUSA wanted to charge me a 15% restocking fee, even though I wanted a more expensive model! It took a lot of complaining to get out of that fee. I won't ever buy from CompUSA again and only buy very cheap items at Best Buy such as a cheep $80 hdd. I am running out of places to go to as a comsumer : ( The only place that seems to put customers over makers and has a good return policy is Walmart. However, Walmart stores do not carry enough mid to high end electronics for my taste.
All software will have security problems. However, for some reason OSS exploits seem to not cause as much damage or affect as many systems. When you compare that to MS software, their exploits seem to affect tons of systems. I am talking more of server based exploits where MS does not have the same monopoly as they do on the desktop since Linux has around 20% - 25% of the server market and MS has about 50% with the rest spread around various Unix or Novell systems.
Holy smokes batman! I don't know if anyone else read this article, however it says that IE has had 153 holes since 18 April 2001, and 6 this month alone! I knew IE was bad, but that is not even acceptable.
Imagine if you purchased a car from Ford and Ford knew that the brakes had problems and needed to be replaced. However, Ford did not tell you about the brakes and chose not to do a recall because that information is corporate "IP". I am sure you (and many others) would have a case against Ford for negligence if you were in an accident.
This is no differenct the the MS situation. MS has access to their code "IP" and are aware of tons of security problems since MS as a company have not taken security seriously until the last two years or so. However, they are keeping that information from end-users because it is their "IP" and the end-users suffer from it. These problems have cost MS customers billions of dollars in recovery and prevention costs. Those costs you will never see in an MS funded TCO study.
I think you are missing the point. MS keeps patenting all these features, no matter how minor, and all of a sudden Mac OS X and Linux desktops have to either drop tons of features, or spend tons of money on court battles. For Linux, it generally means that the feature will be dropped and end users will have to add it back themselves through patches downloaded from some non-USA site. For Apple, it would mean wasting a bunch of cash fighting MS when they could use that money to make better products. Again, instead of MS competing, they are trying to slime their way through competition through anti-competitive means.