since you can never know whether your mail client or your web browser
word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, desktop database software, etc, etc. Since the whole idea of using a computer is to run code there are a miriad of exploit possibilities in just about any application that has scripting capabilities or simply an bug in the code which can be used to execute code. This is the reason applications should not be running with permissions that allow operations like writing to the MBR when there is no reason to.
Your best bet is to use something that has nearly no market share (and is thus not interesting for commercial malware users).
Like Windows ME? While it has virtually no market share I'd hardly recommend it for use in any application. Actually your best bet is to use something that has a good secure design which trys to reduce the potential for exploits. My personal choice is linux and while it does not have the desktop market share of Windows NT variants it does have a massive server/router/appliance install base and it is continually under attack, however, over the years of using linux for my desktop solutions I've yet to have any issues related to exploits.
And finally, the user himself can execute it. And, believe it or not, this is the most used and most successful way of infecting a machine. In other words, the main security problem is not in the machine. It's in front of it.
Can you provide a link to the statistics showing "the most used and most successful way of infecting a machine" is by users executing the code themselves? Visiting a web page with a browser you are executing or reading e-mail with a mail reader you executed either of which may have an exploit via a code bug or scripting is not the same thing as a user executing the code themselves. I assume your suggesting that the users are actually clicking on the executable and intentionally running the code which infects their system, which does happen but I'd like to see the study before I believe that is the #1 successful attack vector.
If I put my code to MBR and LILO loader somewhere else and then start it, will it work? I guess so.
Are you root? If not then the answer is no.
The real issue here is not whether an exploit like this would work with lilo or grub, the issue, as noted by TFA, is that "Unfortunately, all the Windows NT family (including VISTA) still have the same security flaw - MBR can be modified from usermode. Nevertheless, MS blocked write-access to disk sectors from userland code on VISTA after the pagefile attack, however, the first sectors of disk are still unprotected !"
Note: MBR can be modified from usermode, the first sectors of disk are still unprotected
It seems you are the one full of it and you don't even know it.
The OLPC is a non-profit organization, I find it hard to believe you don't understand what that means. Let me give you a hint, non-profit means NO PROFIT? Many people and organizations are donating time, cash, and technology to OLPC which they will write off on their taxes as donations to a charitable organization, it is a non-profit. Obviously OLPC needs capital to continue but its not the same motivation or need as a profit driven corporation. Negroponte had a good explanation when queried about this latest incident...
We're like the World Food Program and they're McDonald's. They can't compete. They are both food organizations but for completely different purposes. If the Classmate were in the hands of every single child in the world, that would be pretty good. Could it have better power charcteristics, a better display, etc.? Sure, that would be good. But I don't care if kids get the XO so much as that they get laptops.
And it is outrageous that anyone continues to this day to push the argument that somehow OLPC's objectives are questionable because starving children need drinking water or whatever other basic need people decide to throw in the argument. If you'd bother to research where these laptops are going and the years of research completed by the OLPC people to achieve their objective, which by the way is not simply about giving laptops to kids, you would realize that the kids who are receiving OLPC laptops HAVE DRINKING WATER. There are many poor children in the world who have food, have drinking water, have a place to live, and in many cases are even receiving an education, who can benefit from the theories of constructionism first developed by Papert.
If your going to post comments attacking OLPC at the very least you should go to laptop.org, click on the 1, and read about the projects vision.
Back to reality. The catch with high definition DVD and plain old DVD is that most of the content included TV series is barely above SVHS quality let alone full DVD quality (high bit rate) so we can completely ignore any pseudo benefit from high definition DVD.
Speaking of reality, do you have a large screen HDTV with either local HD ATSC or digital satellite with HD content? The reason I ask is because I do and I can confirm that there is a ton of HD quality content in TV series and other programming that I can ensure you people will enjoy watching at HD quality versus the best you can get out of SVHS or full DVD quality. Most of the time I just watch movies but Battlestar Galactica is filmed in high quality HD, many recent science series like Blue Planet are in high quality HD, and just about every prime time TV series is filmed in high quality HD as well as the late night talk shows.
You want to talk about reality, have you noticed that many TV programs and even commercials are showing up as cropped images on standard 4:3 NTSC televisions? If you put 2 and 2 together you'll realize the reason why they are cropped is because they are all filmed in high quality HDTV and then cropped and squeezed to fit standard TV screens and bandwidth. But the fact is they are filmed in HDTV formats, even the stupid commercials. How do I know this, because some of the programs and commercials air on the regular TV format at the same time they air on HDTV channels.
The reality is that high quality HDTV content has been streaming out of the regular providers for at least a few years now and aside from the bickering over DRM bits many content developers and content distributors have been ready to deliver the goods for quite some time. And is the quality of HD a compelling reason to upgrade from NTSC, SVHS, and DVD quality, unless you have very poor eye sight or don't actually watch then the answer is a resounding YES.
What he should do is cozy up to Adobe and get them to port the Creative Suite over to Linux, and then sell Adobe CS(4 or 5 or whatever) on a dedicated box running RedHat Linux
I can understand not taking the time to read the article before posting, but did you even bother to read the summary your responding to?
"He suggests that taking proprietary shortcuts is a fundamentally wrong way to build a software business."
Its not likely that people are going to switch to linux because one popular proprietary application runs on linux, OSX, and Windows. They'll likely take the easiest route and stick with the status quo and purchase the Adobe software to run on their existing Windows/OSX box. Which means the effort required to get Adobe to port their apps to linux is pointless. If anything its a benefit to Adobe to port their apps if they want to sell them to people like me who are currently outside of their market possibilities because I refuse to run Windows or OSX, I use linux for my desktop.
I take his stance to be that if the open source apps on linux are not good enough then the correct solution is to put effort into the linux alternative apps, not take a short cut and try to get a proprietary vendor to port their closed source proprietary apps.
And given that the effort to do it the right way will be more difficult than giving in to short cuts, the pay offs would be bigger as well. If Red Hat can undercut the cost of a Windows/OSX system and Adobe apps for a development workstation by utilizing 100% non-proprietary open source applications then they will have a compelling reason for people to switch and consider Red Hat subscription services to support their platform choice.
Undercutting the massive profit margins on proprietary software is far more compelling than giving in to the same.
It looks like to me that the basic premise for most things in the USA is to do something or grant something and then let the courts work it out after the fact. This has the benefit of getting things done cheaply along with that only the people who are grievously upset will bother to fight things in the courts (which is really those who have money to do so)
To me this is a direct result of a purely capitalistic approach - the worship of the Dollar.
Case in point, how much is NTP doing to progress the science of wireless communications and devices versus RIM who recently paid NTP over $600 million for to license their patents. RIM invests about 8% of their revenue in research and development and the result, they pay an additional $600 million to NTP who produces paperwork.
This nonsense should be stopped right now simply by upholding the original common sense of the patent system and the first step is, abolish software patents.
Wouldn't you like to know that the product you are buying doesn't use the stuff the stores sell?
Is this a problem for Mac OSX or Windows Vista? Not only does the description of the gPC specify that it runs the gOS but it also lists multiple applications which are included such as Open Office which precludes the necessity to purchase additional software for most basic computer uses. Will there be people who mistakenly assume they can run Windows apps on the gPC, yes, just as there will be many more people who will mistakenly assume that all their Windows applications they've purchased and their hardware will just work with Vista, but as people are finding out they don't.
And the best part about the gPC for a basic user is that they wont have to worry about determining whether the apps on the shelf at Walmart will work on their PC. Since its based off Ubuntu its likely they can peruse, download, and install many thousands of applications from the repositories using graphical application installation programs. And all at no additional cost above the $200 someone pays for the gPC, unlike platforms like Windows Vista which are pretty much useless out of the box and require all those expensive shrink wrapped boxes sitting on the shelves at Walmart.
Your arguement is a catch 22, but its also moot for anyone with a broadband internet connection, its not necessary to waste time and money driving to the store to purchase worthless packaging. This also applies to commercial software as well but open source has an easier time utilizing internet distribution as the licensing doesn't create the same issues with distribution that commercial software usually carries.
Because it points out flaws in Linux it's biased in some way?
Perhaps you should read the article again. It did not point out any flaws in Linux, in fact the machine and operating system performed exactly as advertised. The 1.5 star rating came down to "programs written for Mac OS X or Windows that you can buy online or in a retail store won't work on the Linux-based gPC". So yeah, its biased.
And just for disclosure, I started using Linux on a desktop back in 1997 and by around 2003 I had dumped Windows but still had one OSX box, and by around 2005 I had dumped even the OSX box and now use Linux on all the machines which my family and I run.
And as far as the best buy for a web surfing and email box, Windows is definitely not the way to go. My first choice would be an inexpensive box with Linux installed, second would be a cheap Mac, the last choice would be Windows due to their extensive history of serious security flaws which allow malware to be installed simply by surfing the web or reading email.
In the initial paragraph Joel made the point that the "gPC's energy-efficient status is to some extent smoke and mirrors" and I fully expected to see a serious explanation for this conclusion as I know from my own experience that the Via Cx processors are amazingly low power units.
However, when we get to the rant about power consumption of the system it turns out that the system consumed a peak of 20W to 50W compared to 50W at idle for an HP low power system and 500W to 1KW for some gaming systems. In fact, the only mention of any "nit pick" which might suggest reasoning for the smoke and mirrors conclusion is due to the fact that "it has no Energy Star rating or EPEAT certification". So the box as tested uses less power than any other system he has tested and yet he calls the energy efficiency status smoke and mirrors because it doesn't have a sticker? Perhaps its this review that is smoke and mirrors.
And if that were not enough he knocks the PC for not running Windows apps when he already acknowledged that the purpose of the box was for basic web surfing. And he complains that a user will require "a lot of time to learn the basic nuances of Linux", I'm assuming because of the comment about viewing the Flash plugin downloads in.tar.gz and.rpm format, to install a firefox plugin when in fact he installed the plugin through firefox as would a Windows or OSX user.
Joel did have a couple of valid points, i.e. the documentation explaining the requirement for broadband internet and an ethernet cable but showing a modem and modem cable in the diagrams, or the idea of reusing an older PC by installing linux as a greener solution. But overall what could have been a solid review of the gPC is overwhelmed by inaccuracies, expectations outside the specifications of the $200 box, and exagerated claims of failure to meet claimed specifications.
I'd give this review 1.5 stars but then I'd say its really not even worth mentioning.
Your a bit late, many linux desktop users jumped on the Mac OSX bandwagon a few years back, myself included.
I had dumped Windows for better than 90% of the apps I was running back in the late 90's in favor of linux on the desktop. Not long after Mac OSX came out I purchased a Wind Tunnel G4 and was able to completely dump Windows. I did not dump my linux desktop and instead ran both linux and OSX, but in the end I always went back to my linux desktop because IMO its better. Perhaps its familiarity, or maybe its all the missing desktop features in OSX or some of the goofy quirks in OSX. Eventually the linux desktop progressed far enough that I was able to do 100% of my work on linux. The Windtunnel now sits silent.
So, in other words, YOU have your OS, keep it. -burnin
Probably because they have a deadline for their book and it seems you answered your own question in your post with..."The authors have been working since the summer with Adobe, the developer of Flash, and the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team to coordinate a remedy. But so far there is no estimate when patches may be released. A security update Adobe released this week for its Flash player doesn't fix the vulnerabilities, Stamos said. Adobe representatives didn't reply to emails seeking comment." I think the question we should be asking is, why is it taking so long for Adobe to address this issue, and why do they not even have a planned date for release of a patch?
Forgive my ignorance, I've not been following the topic at all, but why would one even consider it a good thing to have specific support for one format -- free-as-in-beer-speech-whathaveyou -- embedded in HTML in the first place? Aside from the usual not very good hippie-mountain-crunch commun/social/altru-istic reasons, especially when there is likely to be an encoding-agnostic means to attempt to embed objects into HTML?
Your ignorance is forgiven, and acknowlegement is a good first step.
The reason one would consider it a good thing to have a "free-as-in-beer-speech-whathaveyou" format recommended in the standard, whether your a "hippie-mountain-crunch commun/social/altru-istic reasons" or not, is because the HTML standard is an open standard and the purpose of the W3C is to fulfill the potential of the Web through the development of open standards.
Being an open standard it makes sense to suggest Ogg as the format of choice in the HTML standard. Use of open standards is beneficial to everyone from providers to end users. Suggesting that market forces be allowed to determine a monopolist is not in keeping with open standards.
Keeping with open standards is beneficial as it has been demonstrated over and over again that corporations who are interested in proprietary formats, such as Nokia and Apple, tend to be short sighted and self serving. Case in point is the WWW itself where many large corporations failed to see the value in the vision of the engineers and scientists who were developing it and refused to invest in its development.
I don't take much credence to a paper with rampant misspelling throughout. On slashdot okay, but a position paper? I'd also like to know when it's okay to use an emoticon in a paper?
Agreed, but I'm not sure which is worse, all the mis-spellings and the use of an emoticon, or the suggestion that the rampant use of Flash on web pages is a good result of "market forces to play out this game".
Other than some funny flash cartoons and some cool flash based games it has been a massive wart on the face of the WWW.
look at a highly successful people who transformed themselves from a 3rd-world nation into a 1st-world economic superpower. Consider the case of Japan.
While Japan had some serious rebuilding to do they were far from a 3rd world nation. Although significant infrastructure was destroyed and the country was in disarray they still had many people who were educated and learned in the ways of industrialization.
Tokyo invested almost no money in military forces, space adventures, etc. By 1980, Japan became a 1st-world nation -- and the #2 economic superpower.
Sorry, but that is a false dichotomy. The lack of investment in military development or space science is not the reason japan became a 1st world nation or an economic superpower. If somehow these investments would bankrupt a nation then the U.S. would have been bankrupted long ago and Japan would be #1.
While I'm no expert on post World War II history I'm pretty sure that 1) Japan did not invest in military development or space science because they were expressly forbidden by the Potsdam Declaration and terms of surrender; (I've highlighted what I believe were real contributing factors to their recovery)
* Militarism in Japan must end. * Japan would be occupied until the basic objectives set out in this proclamation were met.
* The terms of the Cairo Declaration would be carried out and Japanese sovereignty would be limited to the islands of Honsh, Hokkaid, Kysh, Shikoku, and such minor islands as the Allies determined.
* The Japanese army would be completely disarmed and allowed to return home.
* Those who had led Japan to war must be permanently and finally discredited, and abandoned.
* War criminals would be punished including those who had "visited cruelties upon our prisoners". * Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established. * Japan should be permitted to maintain a viable industrial economy but not industries which would enable her to re-arm for war.
* The treaty was not intended to enslave the Japanese as a race or as a nation.
* Allied forces would be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished
And 2) the post war Japanese economic recovery is well studied and massive investments before and during the Korean war played a significant role in their recovery, not lack of spending on military and space development.
Forget laptops. Forget space ships. Above all, forget nuclear weapons. If you are a citizen of an impoverished nation, focus on the basics: reading, writing, mathematics, science (includng agriculture), and free markets. If you can succeed at the basics (and everyone can succeed at the basics), then your nation will naturally prosper.
Party correct, except the laptop in OLPC is merely a tool for "focus on the basics: reading, writing, mathematics, science (includng agriculture), and free markets". I'd suggest that Dvorak and everyone else who keeps pointing out that laptops are not needed should do some prior research into the history of OLPC and perhaps then they would understand its not about laptops, its about education and learning, its about contructive learning, and its not a bunch of pretentious westerners dumping laptops in 3rd world countries, th
It is GPLed and you compile it from source. I looked in the README and it supports the Ape cable so I think your in luck.:)
After compiling you'll have a driver module, atarixfer to talk directly to an atari disk drive, and atariserver from which you can host multiple floppy images.
Another option would be something like 64HDD. That way he could still use the C64 and not have to worry about any significant difference from his current interface other than having a PC emulating his floppy drives.
I used a linux driver and a floppy disk server application along with a home made sio to rs232 adapter to emulate eight floppy drives connected to my old Atari 130XE 8 bit computer. It works great, I copied all my floppies onto images on the server and the put the Indus 5-1/4" floppy drive into storage. Swapping floppies or creating new ones now requires a few key strokes on the PC.
My setup is a small Via Epia based PC as the floppy drive emulator server, a Samsung 910MP LCD monitor which has a built in NTSC tuner, composite video input, and the standard VGA input, and a KVM switch so the floppy server shares a keyboard with my regular PC. When using the Atari I can display it full screen on the LCD monitor or I can view is as a PiP on top of the PC/Via floppy server display.
Dual duty on the LCD monitor, a cheap low power Via Epia server, and sharing a keyboard/mouse/monitor between the Via Epia server and a regular PC through a KVM switch has minimized the pain of running an extra PC as a floppy server for the Atari.
b) That is a problem with his version of Nero, not Vista. OS upgrades tend to break compatability with older software, be it in Ubuntu, OS X or Windows.
It is true its not a problem with Vista, just a problem for Vista. But the root of the problem is not OS upgrades as you suggest.
The problem for Vista, and Microsoft and its ISVs, is an outdated archaic software development model. In the case of Ubuntu linux it is likely that the application you use to burn images to discs is an open source application. Your linux distributor of choice will download the latest source code for the burning software, compile and test it against their distribution, and package it for downlad and use by end users. No more compatibility problems caused by OS upgrades.
I'm tired of this myth. I've been using Vista for a while now, and I've never encountered any 'abusive DRM' that prevented my from doing anything I could already do in XP.
Uh, from TFA you linked to...
"In the future, a content provider might choose to constrict the output to these devices, but that decision would apply only to a specific piece of media, and it would have to be disclosed on the package, giving the buyer the opportunity to choose not to purchase it."
So just because you can do the same things in Vista today as XP it may not hold true tomorrow. DRM is abusive by design, and even ZDNet's Ed Bott is aware of this.
Who is to say that Negroponte's vision and hypotheses are the only, correct means by which to accomplish the goal of education in the Third World? I'm not bagging on Negroponte's ideal, but I do question why he took the 'attack' route instead of the 'our product is better because it's cheaper, more effective, and does it here, here, and here...' approach.
Nobody is saying Negroponte's vision is the only possible solution, in fact it could be that Microsoft and Intel succeed in achieving the goal that Negroponte set out to achieve. Of course the problem with that fanciful idea is that Microsoft and Intel are pushing a product into competition with OLPC not because they saw a need and solution for poverty in developing countries, they did it to attack a non-profit project which they saw as good PR for competitors products and more importantly competing ideas. I have to question how far they are actually willing to go with this once OLPC is out of the news.
And Negroponte didn't take an attack route, he is only expressing his concern over the fact that Intel and Microsoft are going into the target countries and attempting to create some kind of showdown. Negroponte is specifically avoiding some stupid hardware comparison contest because the hardware is only part of the solution, its not a laptop project, its an education project. You know, the funny thing is the XO does have multiple hardware benefits over the ClassmatePC but the comparisons I've seen to date are worthless CPU speed, RAM size, and disk space comparisons, and of course the ability to run Microsoft applications is supposed to be some kind of benefit.
To me the entire debacle is disgusting as you have a small group of volunteers in a non-profit who spent years doing research in places like Cambodia with children in villages with limited resources, they then designed from the ground up the hardware and software to be utilized in their education project all based off their learnings in the field, and now you have a couple of multi-billion dollar corporations trying to "compete" in "an emerging market" with hardware and software which are adaptations of business solutions rather than a purpose built system with the objective being profit. That is twisted.
I agree that Intel has less to gain from this than Microsoft, the hardware market is highly competitive and Intel has some great products, but I'm sure the main reason they got involved is becuase they are already working with Microsoft on educational programs in developing countries and the ClassmatePC seems like a good extension of previous work. They have both done some wonderful things for education but they've failed to fill some major voids which Negroponte and his team of volunteers have worked hard to plug. I think most people realize that the main reason OLPC is being attacked by "competition" is due to the radical ideas behind it, specifically the concept of open source. The only benefits Intel or Microsoft will realize from their "competition" with OLPC will be in their existing high profit markets. So some may question the ethics of their actions and whether the children OLPC is trying to reach will benefit from this "competition" as was hoped in the vision.
I absolutely disagree with your opinion of Negroponte's purpose and whether there is any substance to his argument, however, I appreciate your honesty and your understanding that what OLPC is doing is not about faster CPUs, more RAM, and having Microsoft compatible applications.
If only Intel and Microsoft were so honest. These two companies have been involved in educational programs in developing countries for years and they are doing a good job, however, they obviously lack the breadth and depth to which OLPC is directed and in reality there is no "emerging market in developing nations", they are merely trying squash what they see as a competing hardware/software architecture and, yes, an idea.
And one has to wonder if they would continue down their current path of competing with OLPC if they ever achieved their goal of squashing it. Personally I think not, case in point is their past endeavors which failed to reach the children which OLPC is targeted at. I guess these children weren't an emerging market until OLPC came along, but I'm with you, its not even about an emerging market, its about squashing an idea.
"It's an education project, not a laptop project."
-- Nicholas Negroponte
No matter how many times it is explained over and over again it seems Intel and Microsoft have successfully twisted this story of constructive education into some cheap assed laptops for the poor expanding market dilema where there is a need for competition. If Negroponte is pissed he has good reason to be and anyone at Intel or Microsoft who has been involved in the stupid classmate PC project and the efforts to kill OLPC should be ashamed of their scum bag used car salesman tactics.
Negroponte and his team put in the effort to research and develop their constructive education idea and now that they have implemented all their learnings and research into a ready to deploy solution you have these greedy bastards trying to destroy the project in the name of market share and profits. And make no mistake about it, neither Intel nor Microsoft actually have any interest in the goals of the OLPC project or the poor countries it is intended for, their involvement is self serving and designed to generate PR so they can maintain mind share in their current markets, not in some imagined expanding market in poor countries where they see potential for profit.
I may come across as rather harsh on the classmate PC and Microsoft and Intel's actions but again I think its deserved considering the years of work the OLPC people put into a non-profit project with admirable goals only to see it threatened in the name of greed.
And how many of that "majority" were only there to vote in support of the open XML proprietary format but in reality have no interest what so ever in standards? Some honesty here would be refreshing considering the suspicion of corruption.
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/05/133219&from=rss "It turns out there's an interesting correlation between Transparency International's 'corruption perceptions index' and voting behavior in ISO's OOXML decision. Countries with a lower score (more corruption) on the 2006 CPI were more likely to vote in favor of OOXML"
>> More secure (great) This alone may be a good reason for businesses to switch to Vista, but it would require a good analysis of the current risks versus the reduced risk in Vista, the cost of migration, and other business issues. As dependant as companies are on their IT systems these days to do their business a security failure can result in huge losses. I've seen Windows viruses propogate through a facility and result in losses in the millions of US dollars due to lost productivity. If you can't make your product to sell because of a security breach in your IT infrastructure then it doesn't really matter much if it saved you an expense to stay on a less secure platform.
>> expensive (not free?) Funny. But I'm sure the bean counters and department managers will want something with a bit more substance. There are many factors which affect the cost of a platform and based on what I've read on the net about Vista licensing and hardware requirements it will be an expensive upgrade compared to open source (which isn't free either) or remaining on an existing XP platform.
>> driver problems (but linux has many more driver problems) I'm not sure how this is quantified and I have no clue what the issues are with Vista as I don't use it. But then I don't use Windows period. Not for my servers, not for my workstations, not for my laptop. And at this point I have no driver issues with any of the motherboard chipsets, video chipsets, printers, scanners, etc. etc. I'm sure I'll get a nice list of all the problems other people have encountered, but they'll be missing the point. Linux is a viable alternative to Windows in many applications and anyone who is using "but linux has many more driver problems" as an excuse to not delve into a feasibility study deserves the monsterous expense of supporting Microsofts 80%+ profit margins.
That's an extremely vague question that can get a 'yes' that can have any meaning for "I've heard a few people talk about linux, I should see what it is" to "we have drawn up a feasibilty report and are waiting for a decision from upper management".
True, but it appears from the article that they answered that concern in the survey by digging further into the 44% that answered yes. From the article: "Clearly many companies are serious about this alternative, with 9% of those saying they have considered non-Windows operating systems already in the process of switching and a further 25% expecting to switch within the next year,"
So of that 44% that answered yes to the vague question 1/3 of those respondents are either in the process of switching or have some plan in place. Of the remaining 2/3 you will have some who misunderstood the question as "have you ever heard of linux" to those who do not have plans but may be running the numbers or experimenting to determine if its worthwhile or even feasible.
Slashdot Mirror
The real issue here is not whether an exploit like this would work with lilo or grub, the issue, as noted by TFA, is that "Unfortunately, all the Windows NT family (including VISTA) still have the same security flaw - MBR can be modified from usermode. Nevertheless, MS blocked write-access to disk sectors from userland code on VISTA after the pagefile attack, however, the first sectors of disk are still unprotected !"
Note: MBR can be modified from usermode, the first sectors of disk are still unprotected
Yikes!!!
The OLPC is a non-profit organization, I find it hard to believe you don't understand what that means. Let me give you a hint, non-profit means NO PROFIT? Many people and organizations are donating time, cash, and technology to OLPC which they will write off on their taxes as donations to a charitable organization, it is a non-profit. Obviously OLPC needs capital to continue but its not the same motivation or need as a profit driven corporation. Negroponte had a good explanation when queried about this latest incident...
And it is outrageous that anyone continues to this day to push the argument that somehow OLPC's objectives are questionable because starving children need drinking water or whatever other basic need people decide to throw in the argument. If you'd bother to research where these laptops are going and the years of research completed by the OLPC people to achieve their objective, which by the way is not simply about giving laptops to kids, you would realize that the kids who are receiving OLPC laptops HAVE DRINKING WATER. There are many poor children in the world who have food, have drinking water, have a place to live, and in many cases are even receiving an education, who can benefit from the theories of constructionism first developed by Papert.
If your going to post comments attacking OLPC at the very least you should go to laptop.org, click on the 1, and read about the projects vision.
You want to talk about reality, have you noticed that many TV programs and even commercials are showing up as cropped images on standard 4:3 NTSC televisions? If you put 2 and 2 together you'll realize the reason why they are cropped is because they are all filmed in high quality HDTV and then cropped and squeezed to fit standard TV screens and bandwidth. But the fact is they are filmed in HDTV formats, even the stupid commercials. How do I know this, because some of the programs and commercials air on the regular TV format at the same time they air on HDTV channels.
The reality is that high quality HDTV content has been streaming out of the regular providers for at least a few years now and aside from the bickering over DRM bits many content developers and content distributors have been ready to deliver the goods for quite some time. And is the quality of HD a compelling reason to upgrade from NTSC, SVHS, and DVD quality, unless you have very poor eye sight or don't actually watch then the answer is a resounding YES.
"He suggests that taking proprietary shortcuts is a fundamentally wrong way to build a software business."
Its not likely that people are going to switch to linux because one popular proprietary application runs on linux, OSX, and Windows. They'll likely take the easiest route and stick with the status quo and purchase the Adobe software to run on their existing Windows/OSX box. Which means the effort required to get Adobe to port their apps to linux is pointless. If anything its a benefit to Adobe to port their apps if they want to sell them to people like me who are currently outside of their market possibilities because I refuse to run Windows or OSX, I use linux for my desktop.
I take his stance to be that if the open source apps on linux are not good enough then the correct solution is to put effort into the linux alternative apps, not take a short cut and try to get a proprietary vendor to port their closed source proprietary apps.
And given that the effort to do it the right way will be more difficult than giving in to short cuts, the pay offs would be bigger as well. If Red Hat can undercut the cost of a Windows/OSX system and Adobe apps for a development workstation by utilizing 100% non-proprietary open source applications then they will have a compelling reason for people to switch and consider Red Hat subscription services to support their platform choice.
Undercutting the massive profit margins on proprietary software is far more compelling than giving in to the same.
And sadly, while there have been patent trolls probably since the inception of the patent system, the worship of the dollar has turned it into an art where it now threatens the very purpose of the patent system "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;".
Case in point, how much is NTP doing to progress the science of wireless communications and devices versus RIM who recently paid NTP over $600 million for to license their patents. RIM invests about 8% of their revenue in research and development and the result, they pay an additional $600 million to NTP who produces paperwork.
This nonsense should be stopped right now simply by upholding the original common sense of the patent system and the first step is, abolish software patents.
And the best part about the gPC for a basic user is that they wont have to worry about determining whether the apps on the shelf at Walmart will work on their PC. Since its based off Ubuntu its likely they can peruse, download, and install many thousands of applications from the repositories using graphical application installation programs. And all at no additional cost above the $200 someone pays for the gPC, unlike platforms like Windows Vista which are pretty much useless out of the box and require all those expensive shrink wrapped boxes sitting on the shelves at Walmart.
Your arguement is a catch 22, but its also moot for anyone with a broadband internet connection, its not necessary to waste time and money driving to the store to purchase worthless packaging. This also applies to commercial software as well but open source has an easier time utilizing internet distribution as the licensing doesn't create the same issues with distribution that commercial software usually carries.
And just for disclosure, I started using Linux on a desktop back in 1997 and by around 2003 I had dumped Windows but still had one OSX box, and by around 2005 I had dumped even the OSX box and now use Linux on all the machines which my family and I run.
And as far as the best buy for a web surfing and email box, Windows is definitely not the way to go. My first choice would be an inexpensive box with Linux installed, second would be a cheap Mac, the last choice would be Windows due to their extensive history of serious security flaws which allow malware to be installed simply by surfing the web or reading email.
In the initial paragraph Joel made the point that the "gPC's energy-efficient status is to some extent smoke and mirrors" and I fully expected to see a serious explanation for this conclusion as I know from my own experience that the Via Cx processors are amazingly low power units.
.tar.gz and .rpm format, to install a firefox plugin when in fact he installed the plugin through firefox as would a Windows or OSX user.
However, when we get to the rant about power consumption of the system it turns out that the system consumed a peak of 20W to 50W compared to 50W at idle for an HP low power system and 500W to 1KW for some gaming systems. In fact, the only mention of any "nit pick" which might suggest reasoning for the smoke and mirrors conclusion is due to the fact that "it has no Energy Star rating or EPEAT certification". So the box as tested uses less power than any other system he has tested and yet he calls the energy efficiency status smoke and mirrors because it doesn't have a sticker? Perhaps its this review that is smoke and mirrors.
And if that were not enough he knocks the PC for not running Windows apps when he already acknowledged that the purpose of the box was for basic web surfing. And he complains that a user will require "a lot of time to learn the basic nuances of Linux", I'm assuming because of the comment about viewing the Flash plugin downloads in
Joel did have a couple of valid points, i.e. the documentation explaining the requirement for broadband internet and an ethernet cable but showing a modem and modem cable in the diagrams, or the idea of reusing an older PC by installing linux as a greener solution. But overall what could have been a solid review of the gPC is overwhelmed by inaccuracies, expectations outside the specifications of the $200 box, and exagerated claims of failure to meet claimed specifications.
I'd give this review 1.5 stars but then I'd say its really not even worth mentioning.
I had dumped Windows for better than 90% of the apps I was running back in the late 90's in favor of linux on the desktop. Not long after Mac OSX came out I purchased a Wind Tunnel G4 and was able to completely dump Windows. I did not dump my linux desktop and instead ran both linux and OSX, but in the end I always went back to my linux desktop because IMO its better. Perhaps its familiarity, or maybe its all the missing desktop features in OSX or some of the goofy quirks in OSX. Eventually the linux desktop progressed far enough that I was able to do 100% of my work on linux. The Windtunnel now sits silent.
So, in other words, YOU have your OS, keep it. -burnin
Probably because they have a deadline for their book and it seems you answered your own question in your post with
Your ignorance is forgiven, and acknowlegement is a good first step.
The reason one would consider it a good thing to have a "free-as-in-beer-speech-whathaveyou" format recommended in the standard, whether your a "hippie-mountain-crunch commun/social/altru-istic reasons" or not, is because the HTML standard is an open standard and the purpose of the W3C is to fulfill the potential of the Web through the development of open standards.
Being an open standard it makes sense to suggest Ogg as the format of choice in the HTML standard. Use of open standards is beneficial to everyone from providers to end users. Suggesting that market forces be allowed to determine a monopolist is not in keeping with open standards.
Keeping with open standards is beneficial as it has been demonstrated over and over again that corporations who are interested in proprietary formats, such as Nokia and Apple, tend to be short sighted and self serving. Case in point is the WWW itself where many large corporations failed to see the value in the vision of the engineers and scientists who were developing it and refused to invest in its development.
Agreed, but I'm not sure which is worse, all the mis-spellings and the use of an emoticon, or the suggestion that the rampant use of Flash on web pages is a good result of "market forces to play out this game".
Other than some funny flash cartoons and some cool flash based games it has been a massive wart on the face of the WWW.
While Japan had some serious rebuilding to do they were far from a 3rd world nation. Although significant infrastructure was destroyed and the country was in disarray they still had many people who were educated and learned in the ways of industrialization.
Sorry, but that is a false dichotomy. The lack of investment in military development or space science is not the reason japan became a 1st world nation or an economic superpower. If somehow these investments would bankrupt a nation then the U.S. would have been bankrupted long ago and Japan would be #1.
While I'm no expert on post World War II history I'm pretty sure that 1) Japan did not invest in military development or space science because they were expressly forbidden by the Potsdam Declaration and terms of surrender;
(I've highlighted what I believe were real contributing factors to their recovery)
And 2) the post war Japanese economic recovery is well studied and massive investments before and during the Korean war played a significant role in their recovery, not lack of spending on military and space development.
Party correct, except the laptop in OLPC is merely a tool for "focus on the basics: reading, writing, mathematics, science (includng agriculture), and free markets". I'd suggest that Dvorak and everyone else who keeps pointing out that laptops are not needed should do some prior research into the history of OLPC and perhaps then they would understand its not about laptops, its about education and learning, its about contructive learning, and its not a bunch of pretentious westerners dumping laptops in 3rd world countries, th
I'm using the atarisio package from Matthias Reichl, HiassofT's Atari 8bit world.
It is GPLed and you compile it from source. I looked in the README and it supports the Ape cable so I think your in luck.
After compiling you'll have a driver module, atarixfer to talk directly to an atari disk drive, and atariserver from which you can host multiple floppy images.
Another option would be something like 64HDD. That way he could still use the C64 and not have to worry about any significant difference from his current interface other than having a PC emulating his floppy drives.
I used a linux driver and a floppy disk server application along with a home made sio to rs232 adapter to emulate eight floppy drives connected to my old Atari 130XE 8 bit computer. It works great, I copied all my floppies onto images on the server and the put the Indus 5-1/4" floppy drive into storage. Swapping floppies or creating new ones now requires a few key strokes on the PC.
My setup is a small Via Epia based PC as the floppy drive emulator server, a Samsung 910MP LCD monitor which has a built in NTSC tuner, composite video input, and the standard VGA input, and a KVM switch so the floppy server shares a keyboard with my regular PC. When using the Atari I can display it full screen on the LCD monitor or I can view is as a PiP on top of the PC/Via floppy server display.
Dual duty on the LCD monitor, a cheap low power Via Epia server, and sharing a keyboard/mouse/monitor between the Via Epia server and a regular PC through a KVM switch has minimized the pain of running an extra PC as a floppy server for the Atari.
It is true its not a problem with Vista, just a problem for Vista. But the root of the problem is not OS upgrades as you suggest.
The problem for Vista, and Microsoft and its ISVs, is an outdated archaic software development model. In the case of Ubuntu linux it is likely that the application you use to burn images to discs is an open source application. Your linux distributor of choice will download the latest source code for the burning software, compile and test it against their distribution, and package it for downlad and use by end users. No more compatibility problems caused by OS upgrades.
Uh, from TFA you linked to...
"In the future, a content provider might choose to constrict the output to these devices, but that decision would apply only to a specific piece of media, and it would have to be disclosed on the package, giving the buyer the opportunity to choose not to purchase it."
So just because you can do the same things in Vista today as XP it may not hold true tomorrow. DRM is abusive by design, and even ZDNet's Ed Bott is aware of this.
Nobody is saying Negroponte's vision is the only possible solution, in fact it could be that Microsoft and Intel succeed in achieving the goal that Negroponte set out to achieve. Of course the problem with that fanciful idea is that Microsoft and Intel are pushing a product into competition with OLPC not because they saw a need and solution for poverty in developing countries, they did it to attack a non-profit project which they saw as good PR for competitors products and more importantly competing ideas. I have to question how far they are actually willing to go with this once OLPC is out of the news.
And Negroponte didn't take an attack route, he is only expressing his concern over the fact that Intel and Microsoft are going into the target countries and attempting to create some kind of showdown. Negroponte is specifically avoiding some stupid hardware comparison contest because the hardware is only part of the solution, its not a laptop project, its an education project. You know, the funny thing is the XO does have multiple hardware benefits over the ClassmatePC but the comparisons I've seen to date are worthless CPU speed, RAM size, and disk space comparisons, and of course the ability to run Microsoft applications is supposed to be some kind of benefit.
To me the entire debacle is disgusting as you have a small group of volunteers in a non-profit who spent years doing research in places like Cambodia with children in villages with limited resources, they then designed from the ground up the hardware and software to be utilized in their education project all based off their learnings in the field, and now you have a couple of multi-billion dollar corporations trying to "compete" in "an emerging market" with hardware and software which are adaptations of business solutions rather than a purpose built system with the objective being profit. That is twisted.
I agree that Intel has less to gain from this than Microsoft, the hardware market is highly competitive and Intel has some great products, but I'm sure the main reason they got involved is becuase they are already working with Microsoft on educational programs in developing countries and the ClassmatePC seems like a good extension of previous work. They have both done some wonderful things for education but they've failed to fill some major voids which Negroponte and his team of volunteers have worked hard to plug. I think most people realize that the main reason OLPC is being attacked by "competition" is due to the radical ideas behind it, specifically the concept of open source. The only benefits Intel or Microsoft will realize from their "competition" with OLPC will be in their existing high profit markets. So some may question the ethics of their actions and whether the children OLPC is trying to reach will benefit from this "competition" as was hoped in the vision.
Derek, thank you.
I absolutely disagree with your opinion of Negroponte's purpose and whether there is any substance to his argument, however, I appreciate your honesty and your understanding that what OLPC is doing is not about faster CPUs, more RAM, and having Microsoft compatible applications.
If only Intel and Microsoft were so honest. These two companies have been involved in educational programs in developing countries for years and they are doing a good job, however, they obviously lack the breadth and depth to which OLPC is directed and in reality there is no "emerging market in developing nations", they are merely trying squash what they see as a competing hardware/software architecture and, yes, an idea.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9rlf5l9F3Pw
And one has to wonder if they would continue down their current path of competing with OLPC if they ever achieved their goal of squashing it. Personally I think not, case in point is their past endeavors which failed to reach the children which OLPC is targeted at. I guess these children weren't an emerging market until OLPC came along, but I'm with you, its not even about an emerging market, its about squashing an idea.
Good question, and the answer is that Negroponte's goal is NOT to get cheap laptops in the hands of poor children.
http://laptop.org/vision/index.shtml
"It's an education project, not a laptop project."
-- Nicholas Negroponte
No matter how many times it is explained over and over again it seems Intel and Microsoft have successfully twisted this story of constructive education into some cheap assed laptops for the poor expanding market dilema where there is a need for competition. If Negroponte is pissed he has good reason to be and anyone at Intel or Microsoft who has been involved in the stupid classmate PC project and the efforts to kill OLPC should be ashamed of their scum bag used car salesman tactics.
Negroponte and his team put in the effort to research and develop their constructive education idea and now that they have implemented all their learnings and research into a ready to deploy solution you have these greedy bastards trying to destroy the project in the name of market share and profits. And make no mistake about it, neither Intel nor Microsoft actually have any interest in the goals of the OLPC project or the poor countries it is intended for, their involvement is self serving and designed to generate PR so they can maintain mind share in their current markets, not in some imagined expanding market in poor countries where they see potential for profit.
I may come across as rather harsh on the classmate PC and Microsoft and Intel's actions but again I think its deserved considering the years of work the OLPC people put into a non-profit project with admirable goals only to see it threatened in the name of greed.
And how many of that "majority" were only there to vote in support of the open XML proprietary format but in reality have no interest what so ever in standards? Some honesty here would be refreshing considering the suspicion of corruption.
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.17/iso-procedures
"a leaked memo showed that Microsoft asked partners to influence the vote but had also offered to pay them to do so"
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/05/133219&from=rss
"It turns out there's an interesting correlation between Transparency International's 'corruption perceptions index' and voting behavior in ISO's OOXML decision. Countries with a lower score (more corruption) on the 2006 CPI were more likely to vote in favor of OOXML"
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=7E36CE19-D223-45C2-9704-A2F4B116AA26
"the publication of the voting results brings to a close a hard-fought and often bitter battle to win the approval of national voting bodies that has been tarnished by allegations of corruption, bribery vote stuffing"
*sigh* pathetic
"Can I get the icon in cornflower blue?" :)
>> More secure (great)
This alone may be a good reason for businesses to switch to Vista, but it would require a good analysis of the current risks versus the reduced risk in Vista, the cost of migration, and other business issues. As dependant as companies are on their IT systems these days to do their business a security failure can result in huge losses. I've seen Windows viruses propogate through a facility and result in losses in the millions of US dollars due to lost productivity. If you can't make your product to sell because of a security breach in your IT infrastructure then it doesn't really matter much if it saved you an expense to stay on a less secure platform.
>> expensive (not free?)
Funny. But I'm sure the bean counters and department managers will want something with a bit more substance. There are many factors which affect the cost of a platform and based on what I've read on the net about Vista licensing and hardware requirements it will be an expensive upgrade compared to open source (which isn't free either) or remaining on an existing XP platform.
>> driver problems (but linux has many more driver problems)
I'm not sure how this is quantified and I have no clue what the issues are with Vista as I don't use it. But then I don't use Windows period. Not for my servers, not for my workstations, not for my laptop. And at this point I have no driver issues with any of the motherboard chipsets, video chipsets, printers, scanners, etc. etc. I'm sure I'll get a nice list of all the problems other people have encountered, but they'll be missing the point. Linux is a viable alternative to Windows in many applications and anyone who is using "but linux has many more driver problems" as an excuse to not delve into a feasibility study deserves the monsterous expense of supporting Microsofts 80%+ profit margins.
True, but it appears from the article that they answered that concern in the survey by digging further into the 44% that answered yes. From the article: "Clearly many companies are serious about this alternative, with 9% of those saying they have considered non-Windows operating systems already in the process of switching and a further 25% expecting to switch within the next year,"
So of that 44% that answered yes to the vague question 1/3 of those respondents are either in the process of switching or have some plan in place. Of the remaining 2/3 you will have some who misunderstood the question as "have you ever heard of linux" to those who do not have plans but may be running the numbers or experimenting to determine if its worthwhile or even feasible.