I love my old keyboards, and not just the Model M's.
I have 4 Model M's, and two of them have the EraserHead/Pointer Nipple dealie built-in like a Thinkpad. I have one classic Chicony AT with similar bucking springs inside. And I have 5 First-Generation Apple Extended Keyboards (model M0115) which I use with modern computers with an ADB-USB Converter from Griffin. As a professional writer, I've come to learn that a great-feeling keyboard actually adds the the writing experience, and makes the time pass by much more quickly.
That said, when I work in a cubicle farm (which happens from time to time as a tech writer), my Model M's are a problem. Their "clickety-clackety" machine-gun staccato usually irritates the hell out of everyone in earshot, and it doesn't take more than a hour or so for someone to ask me to use another keyboard. So do consider asking your office neighbors about it before shelling out big bucks for one.
On top of that, and this sounds like something right out of Office Space, but a Model M destroys the illusion of "constant productivity." Good managers know that you can't be typing for 8 hours straight, but Pointy Haired Bosses have no clue, and soon start to figure out when you're typing and when you're browsing Slashdot when you use a Model M. Quiet keyboards don't give your down-time away.
A good Apple M0115 (now nearly 20 years old) is a good combination between great key action and relative quiet, (it just goes "tappetty-tap") and as a bonus, it still works on your old Apple IIGS!
First of all, let's not resort to namecalling here.
Neil tested the the software on 12 different infected systems, and found that one resulted in an endless-loop problem requiring support, whereas it installed and worked properly on the others. That right there alone is a better than 90% success rate for Norton. That's hard data. What hard data have you come up with after your extensive testing of av products, Killall? Yeah, I didn't think so.
But this isn't a story about the program's performance (that's in the linked product review). This is a story about the failure of support and a support staff's overzealous attempts to make an extra buck from a desperate customer.
No one expects any free or retail software to clean out all problems all the time, but when you pay for a retail software package, a modicum of free support is part of the deal after a failure to install. Contrary to the tech's assertions, the purchase price include support to install a retail product. If the tech doesn't want to go through the hassle of installing AV products on infected systems via telephone or remote, then the tech should search for another line of work. (And I know - I did this sort of support for 5 years.)
If there were truly no free solutions (and it turns out there were) AT A MINIMUM the tech support person should have offered the option to refund the customer's money after establishing the software wouldn't install. That's not great "tech support," but it at least fair "customer support."
There's also the matter of the tech offering paid services rather than directing the user to free services offered by Norton themselves for just this sort of problem. Offering paid support services for free products is an established business model (SugarCRM anyone?), but ignoring free solutions offered by your own company in order to make an extra buck with a paid solution for a retail product is simply disrespectful to the customer, as is not offering a refund, and Neil called 'em on it. What is your problem with that again?
And finally, there's the little act of plagiarism where the tech represented a third-party free antispyware cleaner as a Symantec product. Also disrepectful, especially when Symantec has its own free tools that are supposed to do the job too. And again, Neil called 'em on it.
Most product reviewers just rewrite press releases without any real testing these days - Neil is one of the few that really tests these things out on banks of infected systems, and then goes through the trouble of pretending to be a normal customer going through tech support to see how it works. There just aren't that many tech reviewers doing that anymore. Personally, I can only think of one other, and modesty prohibits me from mentioning who.
So let's direct that anger to Symantec rather than the reviewer, eh? Symantec dropped the ball on this one.
So why not mod Boxee to appear as Firefox to Hulu?
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Boxee Drops Hulu Support
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I guess I am missing something, but Boxee is ultimately software, right?
So why can't the Boxee people program their software to look like a regular web browser on a regular computer to Hulu's servers, making Boxee indistinguishable to those providers who would care?
Sort of like a User Agent Switcher for a media player? It seems to me that would be a big "FU" to the content providers, a big win for viewers, and Hulu is left out of the loop altogether so they're not to blame.
Look, I know how you feel. I'm a professional writer and journalist, and the digital files I save are pretty much the only result of my life's work, so I try to save them for the future. I'm in the same position, but I seem to have a system that works.
Amazingly, (or sadly, depending on your opinion) I also have all of the documents and material I've ever created (starting with the disks from my Apple//e from high school in the mid 80's, to my emails and my first book's Word files from the early 90's, and everything since including about 300GB of photos) still immediately accessible and viable. It comes from the following understanding:
Hard drives (or basically any storage medium) can and do fail, but they tend to do so in a predictable pattern, but rarely at the same time, so the key is duplication and regular maintenance.
For example, hard drives tend to have a 5-year lifespan, but two identical hard drives in two different machines aren't going to fail on the same day unless there's a fire or natural disaster that wipes out your room/building/city/whatever.
So what I do is have a system where your data is regularly backed up or duplicated at least two times to at least two devices, and then regularly check them. These days I use syncing software that copies my files to a second drive (internal or external - doesn't matter) and then to a second drive to another computer on the LAN. If the syncing software can't read the destination disk during the sync process, then I immediately know something's wrong with that disk, but it's no big deal to replace it and resync, because the chances of the original disk and the first duplicated filestore of both going bad in those couple of days is basically nil. The syncing happens every night. (And I know, I'm already up to three drives, but two drives would be fine, and drives are cheap anyways.)
Every few months or so, I grab a portable external drive from my office a few towns over and make a new copy of my files, and then return the portable drive. The chances of both all my home copies of my files AND the external drive at my office going bad at the same time is practically nil. And the chance of a major natural disaster destroying the disks at both locations is very remote too.
And then replace any drive that fails as the years pass. The new drives will be much bigger than the originals, allowing for more room for more data as the years pass.
Frankly, I think the notion of keeping digital data store that remains inert for decades is silly. You're always making new data. You (probably) always want it backed up. So the data store should always be changing. Once you accept that, and then accept a storage medium that allows for regular changing and updating, and then accept the need for duplication, then data storage isn't risky. Add automated software to do the syncing for you, and it isn't even troublesome.
(And what about those Apple// files, you ask? I have two working Apple//s I still play with to read the duplicated original disks. But those disks were also copied to a Compact Flash card, which I now use on the IIGS as a hard drive. The CF card is backed up to the PC, which an Apple II emulator reads just fine. The backup image of the CF card is always synced between the hard drives. I know, TMI.)
There's a service called Youmail (over at, wait for it, youmail.com) that does basically the same thing, but they have a free plan. The free plan's transcription service isn't as accurate as the paid plan, but it's quite acceptable (and sometimes pretty good for a laugh). And they can text you, email you, and even attach an MP3 of the recording.
Here's a typical example of the free transcription:
"So what it's jim the reason I called use I was i'm trying to figure out if maybe you actually picked up my day planner when you were here last time. I'm going crazy because it can't find it if I lose it um. Really shop so wanna choose maybe scooped it up and stuck in your bag and. What did you check your bag before you had it over anyway talk to it or not by. "
So when I get this message in my email box (I use a Treo, so it arrives within about a minute of my missing or ignoring the call) I know it's not a call about the SQL server going down or the RAID filseverver making funny noises, and I can get back to him when I choose to. Plus in this case, I can check my bag for his daytimer before I even call him back.
Why I was marked a Troll for mentioning Youmail earler when I said basically the same thing as Feepness is beyond me...
I know how you feel (I hate having to drop everything and listen to a message - especially when the freaking message is nothing more than "Call me"), and I hate to sound like a commercial but...
Youmail has made voicemail and my cell phone a lot more livable. It takes over for the voicemail functions of your provider and records the incoming message. It optionally sends you a text message with the details of the call (phone number, duration, message left or not) and optionally texts or emails you a transcription of the message. The free version uses what is at times a comical transcription, but it is still normally enough to figure out what your caller was trying to tell you (and sometimes it is spot-on), and the texts and emails are free too. The $7 a month version uses a more accurate transcription method.
It also emails you an MP3 of the message. Of course, you can also call them up and listen to your messages, or go to the website and listen to them online rather like visual voicemail.
It makes voicemail almost as good as a pager in a lot of ways.;-)
Sounds like he wants an APPLICATION not a framewrk
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F/OSS Flat-File Database?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I'm guessing he wants a FOSS version of FileMaker Pro; something that is an application with a GUI. All you guys are suggesting various frameworks he can use to program his own.
No, I don't have an answer either, other than to suggest the spreadsheet in OpenOffice.
I'm going to get to a solution first, but you have other problems.
For security, put up a webcam or two in your new cubicle: both overlooking your workspace. Make sure they are visible and have bright or blinking LEDs, so they'll be really noticed. Put up a warning sign saying that this space is remotely monitored and digitally recored. Even if it really isn't, the warning should be enough to keep the basic rif-raff away. Sometimes deterrence is better than physical security...
Now then. Here's the real problem.
You speak as if this notebook is your personal property. It really shouldn't be. Your company should be supplying you with the equipment you need to do your job, and if the company equipment gets stolen when you're not around, that's the company's fucking problem, not yours.
Secondly, you say this notebook has an external monitor, standalone keyboard and separate mouse. That sure sounds like a desktop computer to me. Get one instead of the notebook, and the chances of your computer walking off are slim to none.
Third, what place are you working in where you fear your stuff will be taken? I've done time in cubicles since 1988, in places ranging from digital sweatshops, to NASA-type work with spaceship software support, to fortune-500 joints. Never once have I ever had anything taken from my desk more serious than a stapler. I don't even lock the drawers or file cabinets.
Maybe it's time to look for a new shop, since they don't supply you properly, kicked you out of your office, and they employ co-workers that you fear will steal your shit.
I've often wondered about the wisdom of charging for WiFi at Starbucks.
When you buy a coffee, the sugar is free. The creamer is free. The newspapers people bought earlier in the day and then left in the "already read" newspaper bin are free. The bathrooms are free. The lights are free. The heating/cooling is free. The electrical sockets (when available) are free.
WiFi should be just like these - free. It's just another element of the building these days.
Charging for Wifi creates a viscous circle: you need to pay for tech support people because of users having trouble accessing their accounts, but users only need accounts in order to pay for the tech support people. When Wifi is free, you don't need accounts, and you therefore don't need a huge support infrastructure, so you don't need to charge anything.
But what about the DSL line and electricity, you ask? Well, all I can say is that you aren't paying extra for the electricity that powers the lights, or the water that make the toilets flush, and there aren't slots for nickels and dimes by the sugar and creamer. Those costs are baked into the prices of your coffee. Wifi shouldn't be any different.
So it's about freaking time, says I.
And here's where to find the original Silpheed...
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Project Sylpheed Review
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Proving you can't go a month without Apple II related news on Slashdot, you can still view screenshots and download the disk images of the original Silpheed game for the Apple IIGS at http://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/the_fairway/ game_pages/silpheed.html, which is "The Apple IIGS Gaming Memory Fairway."
Who cares if these young whippersnappers spelled the name of the game wrong?
I have one of these, and the Radio Shack equivalent. Unfortunately, it doesn't provide power through its gameport until after Windows boots and the driver loads.
This is no problem for a basic gameport device, but if the joystick ALSO has a keyboard port for sending keypressess when a joystick button is pressed (like all the good Thrustmaster products do), then the keyboard circuit doesn't get power until late in the boot process, and the BIOS, by this point, thinks there's no keyboard connected. As a result, none of the joystick buttons work.
If you have actually tested this and found it to work with an FLCS or F-22, please let me know...
I've had Sound Blasters since the unbelievably long AWE-32 sound card. Even my current rig has an Audigy 2 LS, which works fine under Vista except for one thing:
THE FREAKING GAMEPORT ISN'T SUPPORTED UNDER VISTA.
OK, now I get that modern game controllers are USB now, and I do have quite a few nice USB joysticks, gamepads, and force-feedback steering wheels. However, I also have lots of old Thrustmaster flight controls (stick, throttle, pedals) that I use almost every night, and they all still work fine in XP, and I have enough spare parts to last until the next epoch.
That said, Microsoft removed gameport support in Vista. I'm sure Creative didn't go to bat and ask MS why this was really necessary, and just bent over and took it.
So with that off my chest, the only real reason I've been buying SB products these past 15 years is to get a functional gameport for my legacy gaming hardware. Now that Vista is here to stay, I don't even have that reason to stick with Creative anymore...
I have a fakey "inspirational" poster in my cubicle with this expression quoted at the bottom. A wise investment of $13 that is now empirically proven to be true.
I'm not sure what the story is here, the right to use tor on someone elses network? Does he have that right? It's not his network. I've used tor at home, but completely understand I cant use it at work, and if during my university days, had it existed (maybe it did but whatever), and was told I couldnt use it, I'd just deal with that.
What are you talking about?
The use of tor on "someone else's network" is implicit, because you are connecting to someone on the other side of the network as a whole.
You say you use tor at home, but that's not "your" network either. I think your ISP would say that you are connecting to *their* network. I think the Hosting Provider of the web server you're connecting to would say it is *their* network. I think AT&T, (or whoever owns the backbone your data is traveling across) would say it is *their* network too.
If any of these network owners told you to stop using tor at home, what would you say to that? I'm guessing it would be pretty close to what this professor said to the IT goons trying to intimidate him into stopping.
The only time it's "your" network is when you have two of your own computers on your own LAN, and a tor router between them.
I covered this for Computer Power User magazine a few months back: Launchy, over at http://www.launchy.net/.
This free, Open Source software has many sterling qualities, including:
- extremely fast - looks great by default, and is skinnable too - takes less than 7mb of RAM while running, and no discernible CPU cycles - uses Alt+Space to activate/deactivate, so you can keep your CAPS LOCK key and your left pinky too - autocompletes text as if by magic - opens applications, files, and websites - opens bookmarks - has calculator built-in - doesn't cost $25 (or whatever)
Hey look, I'm still using my Apple II once in a while, and respect the Raskins as much as the next guy, but that's no reason to use an inferior, more expensive product.
Google should ban Ebay listings from searches...
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eBay Bans Google Payments
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· Score: 5, Interesting
You know, it seems more often then not, when I search Google for a product, I sure get a lot of Ebay auction listings in the search results. I would imagine this brings many people into the Ebay auction scene when they otherwise would not have considered bidding instead of buying. Many, MANY people, I bet.
Perhaps Google should consider removing all ebay auctions from their search results? I'm sure the same phony logic that prohibits Google payments from ebay auctions could be used to remove auctions from search results, such as:
"Ebay auctions are not categorically safe transactions, so as a safety precaution, we are eliminating ebay auctions from our search results. Please consider purchasing your new from the following vendors who have an established track record. And coincidentally, these vendors accept payments with Google Payments."
This is not as big a problem as you might think, but you need to plan ahead.
As I do with my dual-booting XP/Linux boxes, make an NTFS partition for Windows XP to boot from, AND make a FAT32 partition for your data. Put your mailstore (You are using a mail client available on multiple OSes, aren't you? Like Thunderbird? Or Opera?) Bookmarks, and My Documents folder on the FAT32 partition, along with any other files you may want complete access to under both OSes.
So, the article says that hackers are breaking into webservers and injecting this code that exploits an IE flaw. Fine.
So, WHAT WEBSERVERS are being hacked into to do this? IIS? Apache 1.3? Apache 2? Windows only? Linux only? Something else? All of the above?
I don't ever use IE for anything, but I do run many websites with a variety of platforms and server software. I'd love to know what it is I'm supposed to be looking for on my servers...
Can't we just take it for granted that IE is just choc-full-o-holes, and these holes will always get discovered by some third party, and MS will eventually make a patch for it.
Then lather, rinse, and repeat?
Why do stories like this even make it to Slashdot anymore?
Slashdot Mirror
I love my old keyboards, and not just the Model M's.
I have 4 Model M's, and two of them have the EraserHead/Pointer Nipple dealie built-in like a Thinkpad. I have one classic Chicony AT with similar bucking springs inside. And I have 5 First-Generation Apple Extended Keyboards (model M0115) which I use with modern computers with an ADB-USB Converter from Griffin. As a professional writer, I've come to learn that a great-feeling keyboard actually adds the the writing experience, and makes the time pass by much more quickly.
That said, when I work in a cubicle farm (which happens from time to time as a tech writer), my Model M's are a problem. Their "clickety-clackety" machine-gun staccato usually irritates the hell out of everyone in earshot, and it doesn't take more than a hour or so for someone to ask me to use another keyboard. So do consider asking your office neighbors about it before shelling out big bucks for one.
On top of that, and this sounds like something right out of Office Space, but a Model M destroys the illusion of "constant productivity." Good managers know that you can't be typing for 8 hours straight, but Pointy Haired Bosses have no clue, and soon start to figure out when you're typing and when you're browsing Slashdot when you use a Model M. Quiet keyboards don't give your down-time away.
A good Apple M0115 (now nearly 20 years old) is a good combination between great key action and relative quiet, (it just goes "tappetty-tap") and as a bonus, it still works on your old Apple IIGS!
A new Muppet Show is obviously on the way...
First of all, let's not resort to namecalling here.
Neil tested the the software on 12 different infected systems, and found that one resulted in an endless-loop problem requiring support, whereas it installed and worked properly on the others. That right there alone is a better than 90% success rate for Norton. That's hard data. What hard data have you come up with after your extensive testing of av products, Killall? Yeah, I didn't think so.
But this isn't a story about the program's performance (that's in the linked product review). This is a story about the failure of support and a support staff's overzealous attempts to make an extra buck from a desperate customer.
No one expects any free or retail software to clean out all problems all the time, but when you pay for a retail software package, a modicum of free support is part of the deal after a failure to install. Contrary to the tech's assertions, the purchase price include support to install a retail product. If the tech doesn't want to go through the hassle of installing AV products on infected systems via telephone or remote, then the tech should search for another line of work. (And I know - I did this sort of support for 5 years.)
If there were truly no free solutions (and it turns out there were) AT A MINIMUM the tech support person should have offered the option to refund the customer's money after establishing the software wouldn't install. That's not great "tech support," but it at least fair "customer support."
There's also the matter of the tech offering paid services rather than directing the user to free services offered by Norton themselves for just this sort of problem. Offering paid support services for free products is an established business model (SugarCRM anyone?), but ignoring free solutions offered by your own company in order to make an extra buck with a paid solution for a retail product is simply disrespectful to the customer, as is not offering a refund, and Neil called 'em on it. What is your problem with that again?
And finally, there's the little act of plagiarism where the tech represented a third-party free antispyware cleaner as a Symantec product. Also disrepectful, especially when Symantec has its own free tools that are supposed to do the job too. And again, Neil called 'em on it.
Most product reviewers just rewrite press releases without any real testing these days - Neil is one of the few that really tests these things out on banks of infected systems, and then goes through the trouble of pretending to be a normal customer going through tech support to see how it works. There just aren't that many tech reviewers doing that anymore. Personally, I can only think of one other, and modesty prohibits me from mentioning who.
So let's direct that anger to Symantec rather than the reviewer, eh? Symantec dropped the ball on this one.
I guess I am missing something, but Boxee is ultimately software, right?
So why can't the Boxee people program their software to look like a regular web browser on a regular computer to Hulu's servers, making Boxee indistinguishable to those providers who would care?
Sort of like a User Agent Switcher for a media player? It seems to me that would be a big "FU" to the content providers, a big win for viewers, and Hulu is left out of the loop altogether so they're not to blame.
Look, I know how you feel. I'm a professional writer and journalist, and the digital files I save are pretty much the only result of my life's work, so I try to save them for the future. I'm in the same position, but I seem to have a system that works.
Amazingly, (or sadly, depending on your opinion) I also have all of the documents and material I've ever created (starting with the disks from my Apple //e from high school in the mid 80's, to my emails and my first book's Word files from the early 90's, and everything since including about 300GB of photos) still immediately accessible and viable. It comes from the following understanding:
Hard drives (or basically any storage medium) can and do fail, but they tend to do so in a predictable pattern, but rarely at the same time, so the key is duplication and regular maintenance.
For example, hard drives tend to have a 5-year lifespan, but two identical hard drives in two different machines aren't going to fail on the same day unless there's a fire or natural disaster that wipes out your room/building/city/whatever.
So what I do is have a system where your data is regularly backed up or duplicated at least two times to at least two devices, and then regularly check them. These days I use syncing software that copies my files to a second drive (internal or external - doesn't matter) and then to a second drive to another computer on the LAN. If the syncing software can't read the destination disk during the sync process, then I immediately know something's wrong with that disk, but it's no big deal to replace it and resync, because the chances of the original disk and the first duplicated filestore of both going bad in those couple of days is basically nil. The syncing happens every night. (And I know, I'm already up to three drives, but two drives would be fine, and drives are cheap anyways.)
Every few months or so, I grab a portable external drive from my office a few towns over and make a new copy of my files, and then return the portable drive. The chances of both all my home copies of my files AND the external drive at my office going bad at the same time is practically nil. And the chance of a major natural disaster destroying the disks at both locations is very remote too.
And then replace any drive that fails as the years pass. The new drives will be much bigger than the originals, allowing for more room for more data as the years pass.
Frankly, I think the notion of keeping digital data store that remains inert for decades is silly. You're always making new data. You (probably) always want it backed up. So the data store should always be changing. Once you accept that, and then accept a storage medium that allows for regular changing and updating, and then accept the need for duplication, then data storage isn't risky. Add automated software to do the syncing for you, and it isn't even troublesome.
(And what about those Apple // files, you ask? I have two working Apple //s I still play with to read the duplicated original disks. But those disks were also copied to a Compact Flash card, which I now use on the IIGS as a hard drive. The CF card is backed up to the PC, which an Apple II emulator reads just fine. The backup image of the CF card is always synced between the hard drives. I know, TMI.)
Before the efforts of Internet Watch Foundation, I had never seen the image they were all worked up about, which is at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Virgin_Killer.jpg.
And now, thanks to their tireless efforts to protect me from myself, I have seen it.
Good work, IWF!
Sorry about that last post. Apparently I have a free plan that's been grandfathered into the new pay plan schemes for transcriptions.
It's still cheaper than phonetag.com, but it isn't free.
My apologies.
There's a service called Youmail (over at, wait for it, youmail.com) that does basically the same thing, but they have a free plan. The free plan's transcription service isn't as accurate as the paid plan, but it's quite acceptable (and sometimes pretty good for a laugh). And they can text you, email you, and even attach an MP3 of the recording.
Here's a typical example of the free transcription:
"So what it's jim the reason I called use I was i'm trying to figure out if maybe you actually picked up my day planner when you were here last time. I'm going crazy because it can't find it if I lose it um. Really shop so wanna choose maybe scooped it up and stuck in your bag and. What did you check your bag before you had it over anyway talk to it or not by. "
So when I get this message in my email box (I use a Treo, so it arrives within about a minute of my missing or ignoring the call) I know it's not a call about the SQL server going down or the RAID filseverver making funny noises, and I can get back to him when I choose to. Plus in this case, I can check my bag for his daytimer before I even call him back.
Why I was marked a Troll for mentioning Youmail earler when I said basically the same thing as Feepness is beyond me...
Youmail has made voicemail and my cell phone a lot more livable. It takes over for the voicemail functions of your provider and records the incoming message. It optionally sends you a text message with the details of the call (phone number, duration, message left or not) and optionally texts or emails you a transcription of the message. The free version uses what is at times a comical transcription, but it is still normally enough to figure out what your caller was trying to tell you (and sometimes it is spot-on), and the texts and emails are free too. The $7 a month version uses a more accurate transcription method.
It also emails you an MP3 of the message. Of course, you can also call them up and listen to your messages, or go to the website and listen to them online rather like visual voicemail. It makes voicemail almost as good as a pager in a lot of ways. ;-)
Doesn't seem like it to me.
I'm guessing he wants a FOSS version of FileMaker Pro; something that is an application with a GUI. All you guys are suggesting various frameworks he can use to program his own. No, I don't have an answer either, other than to suggest the spreadsheet in OpenOffice.
Having watched the video, could that computer BE any louder?
I'm going to get to a solution first, but you have other problems.
For security, put up a webcam or two in your new cubicle: both overlooking your workspace. Make sure they are visible and have bright or blinking LEDs, so they'll be really noticed. Put up a warning sign saying that this space is remotely monitored and digitally recored. Even if it really isn't, the warning should be enough to keep the basic rif-raff away. Sometimes deterrence is better than physical security...
Now then. Here's the real problem.
You speak as if this notebook is your personal property. It really shouldn't be. Your company should be supplying you with the equipment you need to do your job, and if the company equipment gets stolen when you're not around, that's the company's fucking problem, not yours.
Secondly, you say this notebook has an external monitor, standalone keyboard and separate mouse. That sure sounds like a desktop computer to me. Get one instead of the notebook, and the chances of your computer walking off are slim to none.
Third, what place are you working in where you fear your stuff will be taken? I've done time in cubicles since 1988, in places ranging from digital sweatshops, to NASA-type work with spaceship software support, to fortune-500 joints. Never once have I ever had anything taken from my desk more serious than a stapler. I don't even lock the drawers or file cabinets.
Maybe it's time to look for a new shop, since they don't supply you properly, kicked you out of your office, and they employ co-workers that you fear will steal your shit.
I've often wondered about the wisdom of charging for WiFi at Starbucks.
When you buy a coffee, the sugar is free. The creamer is free. The newspapers people bought earlier in the day and then left in the "already read" newspaper bin are free. The bathrooms are free. The lights are free. The heating/cooling is free. The electrical sockets (when available) are free.
WiFi should be just like these - free. It's just another element of the building these days.
Charging for Wifi creates a viscous circle: you need to pay for tech support people because of users having trouble accessing their accounts, but users only need accounts in order to pay for the tech support people. When Wifi is free, you don't need accounts, and you therefore don't need a huge support infrastructure, so you don't need to charge anything.
But what about the DSL line and electricity, you ask? Well, all I can say is that you aren't paying extra for the electricity that powers the lights, or the water that make the toilets flush, and there aren't slots for nickels and dimes by the sugar and creamer. Those costs are baked into the prices of your coffee. Wifi shouldn't be any different.
So it's about freaking time, says I.
Who cares if these young whippersnappers spelled the name of the game wrong?
I have one of these, and the Radio Shack equivalent. Unfortunately, it doesn't provide power through its gameport until after Windows boots and the driver loads.
This is no problem for a basic gameport device, but if the joystick ALSO has a keyboard port for sending keypressess when a joystick button is pressed (like all the good Thrustmaster products do), then the keyboard circuit doesn't get power until late in the boot process, and the BIOS, by this point, thinks there's no keyboard connected. As a result, none of the joystick buttons work.
If you have actually tested this and found it to work with an FLCS or F-22, please let me know...
I've had Sound Blasters since the unbelievably long AWE-32 sound card. Even my current rig has an Audigy 2 LS, which works fine under Vista except for one thing:
THE FREAKING GAMEPORT ISN'T SUPPORTED UNDER VISTA.
OK, now I get that modern game controllers are USB now, and I do have quite a few nice USB joysticks, gamepads, and force-feedback steering wheels. However, I also have lots of old Thrustmaster flight controls (stick, throttle, pedals) that I use almost every night, and they all still work fine in XP, and I have enough spare parts to last until the next epoch.
That said, Microsoft removed gameport support in Vista. I'm sure Creative didn't go to bat and ask MS why this was really necessary, and just bent over and took it.
So with that off my chest, the only real reason I've been buying SB products these past 15 years is to get a functional gameport for my legacy gaming hardware. Now that Vista is here to stay, I don't even have that reason to stick with Creative anymore...
I have a fakey "inspirational" poster in my cubicle with this expression quoted at the bottom. A wise investment of $13 that is now empirically proven to be true.
What are you talking about?
The use of tor on "someone else's network" is implicit, because you are connecting to someone on the other side of the network as a whole.
You say you use tor at home, but that's not "your" network either. I think your ISP would say that you are connecting to *their* network. I think the Hosting Provider of the web server you're connecting to would say it is *their* network. I think AT&T, (or whoever owns the backbone your data is traveling across) would say it is *their* network too.
If any of these network owners told you to stop using tor at home, what would you say to that? I'm guessing it would be pretty close to what this professor said to the IT goons trying to intimidate him into stopping.
The only time it's "your" network is when you have two of your own computers on your own LAN, and a tor router between them.
I don't think so. I just Alt-Tab my way between windows...
I covered this for Computer Power User magazine a few months back: Launchy, over at http://www.launchy.net/.
This free, Open Source software has many sterling qualities, including:
- extremely fast
- looks great by default, and is skinnable too
- takes less than 7mb of RAM while running, and no discernible CPU cycles
- uses Alt+Space to activate/deactivate, so you can keep your CAPS LOCK key and your left pinky too
- autocompletes text as if by magic
- opens applications, files, and websites
- opens bookmarks
- has calculator built-in
- doesn't cost $25 (or whatever)
Hey look, I'm still using my Apple II once in a while, and respect the Raskins as much as the next guy, but that's no reason to use an inferior, more expensive product.
You know, it seems more often then not, when I search Google for a product, I sure get a lot of Ebay auction listings in the search results. I would imagine this brings many people into the Ebay auction scene when they otherwise would not have considered bidding instead of buying. Many, MANY people, I bet.
Perhaps Google should consider removing all ebay auctions from their search results? I'm sure the same phony logic that prohibits Google payments from ebay auctions could be used to remove auctions from search results, such as:
"Ebay auctions are not categorically safe transactions, so as a safety precaution, we are eliminating ebay auctions from our search results. Please consider purchasing your new from the following vendors who have an established track record. And coincidentally, these vendors accept payments with Google Payments."
Let's see who needs who then, ebay...
This is not as big a problem as you might think, but you need to plan ahead.
As I do with my dual-booting XP/Linux boxes, make an NTFS partition for Windows XP to boot from, AND make a FAT32 partition for your data. Put your mailstore (You are using a mail client available on multiple OSes, aren't you? Like Thunderbird? Or Opera?) Bookmarks, and My Documents folder on the FAT32 partition, along with any other files you may want complete access to under both OSes.
Then you're good to go.
So, the article says that hackers are breaking into webservers and injecting this code that exploits an IE flaw. Fine.
So, WHAT WEBSERVERS are being hacked into to do this? IIS? Apache 1.3? Apache 2? Windows only? Linux only? Something else? All of the above?
I don't ever use IE for anything, but I do run many websites with a variety of platforms and server software. I'd love to know what it is I'm supposed to be looking for on my servers...
Can't we just take it for granted that IE is just choc-full-o-holes, and these holes will always get discovered by some third party, and MS will eventually make a patch for it. Then lather, rinse, and repeat? Why do stories like this even make it to Slashdot anymore?