Thank you. I was hoping that people hadn't forgotten that Apple actually introduced the notion of a beige computer. Funny thing is that it really did set them apart. I remember friends of mine who had the shiny Tandy TRS-80 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80. It looked cheap. Somehow, the textured beige of the Apple ][e seemed much more modern. It also didn't show fingerprints like the TRS-80.
Of course, PC makers took that beige color and started churning out boxes that had even less aesthetic value. Personally, I loved the white//c and the somewhat gray-white//c+. Always thought the design looked so much cleaner. Maybe that is why I like my white iBook G4 and why I am pondering the purchase of a new MacBook. My iBook takes a real beating but it just keeps chugging along.
I can't decide whether it's obvious or stupid. So, I've come up with my own arbitrary list of dumb ideas directly from the article.
On the surface of things, the idea of "Educating Users" seems less than dumb: education is always good. On the other hand, like "Penetrate and Patch" if it was going to work, it would have worked by now. There have been numerous interesting studies that indicate that a significant percentage of users will trade their password for a candy bar, and the Anna Kournikova worm showed us that nearly 1/2 of humanity will click on anything purporting to contain nude pictures of barely clothed females. If "Educating Users" is the strategy you plan to embark upon, you should expect to have to "patch" your users every week. That's dumb.
I disagree with much of this statement from the writer's "educating users" section. I'm not only for educating users but I am also a big proponent of educating writers.
Suggesting that "if it (educating users) was going to work, it would have worked by now" is dumb. This statement is a fallacy of bifurcation -- suggesting that there are only two possible outcomes. Either it works or it doesn't. Of course, this leaves out a very real third possibility: the writer is an addle-minded moron for creating this either/or "test" of effectiveness.
Stating that "There have been numerous interesting studies" but failing to cite any of them. I am not familiar with the candy bar studies but I wonder... Do any of these studies look at how many of the same users will trade their password for a candy bar if they have had some security training? And what is the age demographic being studied if candy bars are so appealing? Unless, of course, the candy in question is Snickers -- 'cause Snickers really satifies.
Stating that it will be necessary to "patch" users every week. It may not be necessary to "patch" your users every week if you make "Educating Users" part of a larger approach to your computer security program. Don't try to educate your users about everything. Instead, educate them about enough to make them good network citizens. Besides, if you are stripping off all attachments without educating your users, you will have successfully identified one of the "six dumbest things to do to the CEO's email."
Writing "nude pictures of barely clothed females." Come on! Are they nude? Are they barely clothed? That is really going to skew that 1/2 of humanity statistic.
You are comparing apples and oranges. The number of personal websites in '97 and
'98 doesn't really matter. How many people were using the web at that time?
I would hazard a guess that the average personal website in '97/'98 was put
up by someone more technically inclined than the average personal website put
up today. Even the more technically inclined today are writing their own Python/Perl/PHP
scripts to handle much of their HTML coding.
I will still put up a hand-coded page. But I usually run it through HTML
TIDY first. Most other people I know who have some sort of web presence
wouldn't dream of using a text editor to fiddle with the HTML source. But, maybe I'm just hanging around with people who are below average.
I don't know. It seems to me that the average Joe/Josephine is going to be using some editor (graphical would be my guess) to do the editing for him/her. So, the only people that really need to be fluent in those rules are going to be the creators of those tools.
Perhaps I am just being negative, but I really don't see many average users opening up a page in Vi, Emacs, or TextEdit. If you can get Frontpage, Dreamweaver, and the various blogging applications and services to use valid XHTML, you are going to take care of most of your "average" users.
Beyond those "average" users, you probably have people who can grok XHTML.
I looked for a good webmail system that also supported IMAP. I finally found it in www.fastmail.fm.
It is a pay service but it is very reasonable if you want a reliable email system. I pay $20 a year for:
50 MB storage space
200 MB bw/month
IMAP/POP/Web access
SMTP for sending email
Mail forwarding
Virus checker
Advanced SPAM filter
3 Aliases
They have a FREE service as well as one tier of service lower and one higher than the one I chose.
Check it out. I have been very pleased.
To date, I'm not sure any console video game has been as good for cooperative game play with a significant other as the Atari 2600 Space Invaders. The number of different two-player game options was incredible.
Two opposing players taking alternation turns.
Two opposing players competing at the same time.
Two opposing players competing at the same time taking alternating shots.
Two player partnership game with each player able to move the canon one direction.
Two player partnership game with one player controlling cannon movement and the other player firing laser.
Two player partnership game with alternating firing and control of the canon.
Multiply that by all the other variations (invisible, zig-zag bombs, moving shields) and there were hours of entertainment. The cooperative play modes were especially fun because you really had to be communicating in order to clear a level.
I say ditch the Playstation2 and find an old Atari 2600 and some decent joysticks. You might be surprised how much fun you have.
One girlfriend used to get quite frisky after we played Space Invaders for awhile. Now she's my wife. How's that for an endorsement?
Balzac is said to have died from a heart problem induced by his love for coffee. The man was an addict. See his "The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee". Of course, one also note that the guy wrote well over a hundred novels during his career so it might have been a good trade -- depends on where your priorities are. I always thought Balzac should be the patron saint of geeks and programmers.
Immediately when I saw the headline, I did the
Pelllllllllll-Tierrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-Beeeeeeeeeeeer
in the style of the old Rainer Beer commercial that just showed a mountain but the voice over was some guy saying Rainier Beer as if it were a motorcycle or sports car shifting into higher gear as it came around a mountain curve.
I was just in grade school at the time but I still remember that commercial and the Hamm's Beer (Bear) Jingle of the late 1970's.
Try Lyx. You will actually find that composition doesn't take as long as writing with a wordprocessor. Formatting is simple -- leave it up to Lyx. I only recently started using Lyx and it has quickly become my favorite writing tool.
Now if I could just get our IS department to allow me to install Lyx on my Windows 2000 workstation, my job would be a little easier.
From Mandrake Forum >> "At this moment none. I'm not sure if/when there will be any special priviledges for silver/gold mambers in the future, but there are none today."
If you want to read this response by Deno you can find it in Mandrake Forum.
This is the only place I saw mention of membership level benefits being the same but it sure seems to imply they could change at any time.
This is not what I recall at all. I remember the question being put to Deno and he said that at this time there was no difference in the levels but that this might change. Everyone who has seen the MandrakeClub develop knows that they have been working out the details -- by gauging what the community wants/needs and then guaging what they can provide.
I took a look at the levels and said, "Okay, I won't be getting any more but I'm going to join at the Silver level." It was a choice. I was also planning on purchasing Sun's Star Office -- not because I need it (I have been using Open Office in the interim) but because I feel that it is important to support a company that made this product available and made Linux a better contender for the desktop. I might still purchase Star Office.
It is a matter of how much I feel I benefit from Mandrake's product. That I didn't have 2-3 hours (in opportunity costs) to get my scanner working has been a real plus for me these past few weeks.
Some day people in this community have to grow up and realize that if you don't support some of these products now, they might not be around to support in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you. I was hoping that people hadn't forgotten that Apple actually introduced the notion of a beige computer. Funny thing is that it really did set them apart. I remember friends of mine who had the shiny Tandy TRS-80 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80. It looked cheap. Somehow, the textured beige of the Apple ][e seemed much more modern. It also didn't show fingerprints like the TRS-80.
Of course, PC makers took that beige color and started churning out boxes that had even less aesthetic value. Personally, I loved the white //c and the somewhat gray-white //c+. Always thought the design looked so much cleaner. Maybe that is why I like my white iBook G4 and why I am pondering the purchase of a new MacBook. My iBook takes a real beating but it just keeps chugging along.
Probably true -- as long as they have TVs to cry in front of. If they take away my MythTV, I will just read more -- subversive literature most likely.
100 hours of porn.? Who really needs more than 10 to 15 minutes?
whats so hard about loading a transparent PNG anyway?
Yes, and what is so hard about loading a jpeg without exposing your system to malicious code? Oh, wait...
I would hazard a guess that the average personal website in '97/'98 was put up by someone more technically inclined than the average personal website put up today. Even the more technically inclined today are writing their own Python/Perl/PHP scripts to handle much of their HTML coding.
I will still put up a hand-coded page. But I usually run it through HTML TIDY first. Most other people I know who have some sort of web presence wouldn't dream of using a text editor to fiddle with the HTML source. But, maybe I'm just hanging around with people who are below average.
I don't know. It seems to me that the average Joe/Josephine is going to be using some editor (graphical would be my guess) to do the editing for him/her. So, the only people that really need to be fluent in those rules are going to be the creators of those tools.
Perhaps I am just being negative, but I really don't see many average users opening up a page in Vi, Emacs, or TextEdit. If you can get Frontpage, Dreamweaver, and the various blogging applications and services to use valid XHTML, you are going to take care of most of your "average" users.
Beyond those "average" users, you probably have people who can grok XHTML.
I looked for a good webmail system that also supported IMAP. I finally found it in www.fastmail.fm. It is a pay service but it is very reasonable if you want a reliable email system. I pay $20 a year for: 50 MB storage space 200 MB bw/month IMAP/POP/Web access SMTP for sending email Mail forwarding Virus checker Advanced SPAM filter 3 Aliases They have a FREE service as well as one tier of service lower and one higher than the one I chose. Check it out. I have been very pleased.
- Two opposing players taking alternation turns.
- Two opposing players competing at the same time.
- Two opposing players competing at the same time taking alternating shots.
- Two player partnership game with each player able to move the canon one direction.
- Two player partnership game with one player controlling cannon movement and the other player firing laser.
- Two player partnership game with alternating firing and control of the canon.
Multiply that by all the other variations (invisible, zig-zag bombs, moving shields) and there were hours of entertainment. The cooperative play modes were especially fun because you really had to be communicating in order to clear a level. I say ditch the Playstation2 and find an old Atari 2600 and some decent joysticks. You might be surprised how much fun you have.One girlfriend used to get quite frisky after we played Space Invaders for awhile. Now she's my wife. How's that for an endorsement?
Balzac is said to have died from a heart problem induced by his love for coffee. The man was an addict. See his "The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee". Of course, one also note that the guy wrote well over a hundred novels during his career so it might have been a good trade -- depends on where your priorities are. I always thought Balzac should be the patron saint of geeks and programmers.
Immediately when I saw the headline, I did the Pelllllllllll-Tierrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-Beeeeeeeeeeeer in the style of the old Rainer Beer commercial that just showed a mountain but the voice over was some guy saying Rainier Beer as if it were a motorcycle or sports car shifting into higher gear as it came around a mountain curve. I was just in grade school at the time but I still remember that commercial and the Hamm's Beer (Bear) Jingle of the late 1970's.
Try Lyx. You will actually find that composition doesn't take as long as writing with a wordprocessor. Formatting is simple -- leave it up to Lyx. I only recently started using Lyx and it has quickly become my favorite writing tool.
Now if I could just get our IS department to allow me to install Lyx on my Windows 2000 workstation, my job would be a little easier.
If you want to read this response by Deno you can find it in Mandrake Forum.
This is the only place I saw mention of membership level benefits being the same but it sure seems to imply they could change at any time.
Geez, they did not "promise" equal access for all. They said that "currently" there is no difference.
A "donation" does not imply any sort of compensation. You are giving toward a cause. Anything you get in return is icing on the cake.
It's only a cut and dry case for those who want something for nothing.
This is not what I recall at all. I remember the question being put to Deno and he said that at this time there was no difference in the levels but that this might change. Everyone who has seen the MandrakeClub develop knows that they have been working out the details -- by gauging what the community wants/needs and then guaging what they can provide.
I took a look at the levels and said, "Okay, I won't be getting any more but I'm going to join at the Silver level." It was a choice. I was also planning on purchasing Sun's Star Office -- not because I need it (I have been using Open Office in the interim) but because I feel that it is important to support a company that made this product available and made Linux a better contender for the desktop. I might still purchase Star Office.
It is a matter of how much I feel I benefit from Mandrake's product. That I didn't have 2-3 hours (in opportunity costs) to get my scanner working has been a real plus for me these past few weeks.
Some day people in this community have to grow up and realize that if you don't support some of these products now, they might not be around to support in the future.