The reality of life is that WMV9 is one of the most, if not the most, used codecs around. Therefore it would have been poor testing and irresponsible reporting to have excluded it from the test.
What you suggest would be like a round up of office suites that tested Open Office, WordPerfect, Star Office and KDE Office but, didn't include Microsoft Office. You can't do that and expect to taken seriously.
On the other hand, their result was that WMV9 was the overall winner. My testing is based on what is most important to me. Quality. From a quality perspective I felt that DivX was the clear winner. Of the examples they gave, DivX was clearer and retained more detail than WMV9 in all but a very few cases.
Ok. encoding speed is somewhat important to a few people and bitrate is pretty important to most people but, quality is the most important to almost everyone. From a quality standpoint DivX is the clear winner. But, it still isn't broadcast quality let alone DVD quality.
You'd like to be on TV while you do a project that interests you. Doesn't everyone? But, the question is; is your project of interest to millions of people? Bare in mind that most people do not share your interest in ham radio, including myself.
You must ask yourself a few questions about the project. What about your event is going to draw the attention of millions of people? Is it really cool? It might be cold, being in Alaska but, not really "cool". Is it exciting? Is there life threatening danger or death defying stunts? Lots of high-speed action? Morbidity? Scantily clad chicks? Or is it a bunch of guys bundled up in parkas and huddled in front of radios cheering and high fiving because they were able to say, "I read you, five by five." to someone a couple of thousand miles away?
I suspect that the latter is likely the case and while it is very exciting for the participants of the event, spectators will be sleeping faster than thay would with a Nova episode about string theory. Steve Irwin might not interest you but, he interests a very large number of people for many different reasons. People tune in to watch because they are drawn to the "death defying stunts" of playing with poisonous snakes or "man eating" crocodiles. Some will watch because they don't want to miss when he finally gets bitten and they get their chance to say, "I knew that idiot was going to get it". Still others watch because they are interested in those animals or have never seen those animals for themselves.
The point is that while Steve Irwin may be of interest to millions of people for various reasons. A Ham operators club doing their thing on an island in Alaska just doesn't do it for most people. Sorry.
start thinking about how we persuade governments that market in software may eventually need to be regulated
Bad idea. If it needs to be regulated then I believe that your product is inadequate. If your product is the best, then the market will decide. Think about it for a minute. You have a free operating system with free applications that you claim to be superior to everything else yet, you then want/need government regulation and mandates to require people to use your "better product"? That just doesn't make sense.
I don't care what monopolistic practices Microsoft pulls, short of government mandates requiring Microsoft's use. If the product is truely better it will be chosen over others. The price is already right.
Asuuming that you don't use an asset management package that inventories the programs on a PC, I'm curious how you scan the network for spyware programs. Would you care to share your techniques and tools with the rest of us?
That may be a little on the high side but, 1 in 20 is way too low. Spyware is as out of control as spam is but, most people aren't aware of it, as they are with spam, so it doesn't get as much mention.
I have always thought of spyware as a virus. Perhaps not as destructive but, a virus none the less. Thus, I have always felt that the commercial anti-virus companies should make their software to detect and remove spyware just as they do viruses. As yet they do not but, there is a major need for it.
Now, many people will start rattling off the plethora of spyware detectors and adware look alikes but, the fact is that none of these programs is capable of detecting all of the various spyware in the wild. Additionally, since they are all small companies or free projects they aren't and will not be able to keep up with the flood of new spyware as it comes out. Only the major players like the present anti-virus companies will be able to do it effectively with frequent updates to catch the latest bugs.
Of course, the immediate solution is to not use Windows but, that is not going to happen and even if it did, there would be spyware for Mac and Linux after a while. It's getting to the point that the little voice in my head keeps screaming at me to block off all port 80 traffic.
Re:Gates/Chong/Pope?
on
Gates on Spam
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
If this scheme (somehow) takes off, it means that FOSS SMTP servers can't implement it (at least in IP-friendly countries). That means Exchange becomes the de facto mail server.
Hold on a second. In the beginning, MS MAIL and later Exchange didn't use SMTP. Microsoft mail systems were islands in the business world. In order for them to communicate with other mail systems a connector had to be set up between those systems. At the same time everyone else was using Sendmail and anyone could communicate with anyone else. It has only been in the past few years that Exchange became SMTP enabled and is now able to communicate with everyone else like the Unix people had been doing all along.
So, what's my point? The point is that while Exchange is immensely popular right now it is due to the ease of use and the feature set, not because it is a better system. In fact it wasn't until Microsoft improved Exchange by adding SMTP that so many companies started using it. Today Exchange uses SMTP exclusively, for server to server communication. There are too many, too good, FOSS mail systems out there for MS to implement an expensive scheme, with little hope of success, and have everyone adopt it. Think about it. Most big Exchange users front-end it with Sendmail or Postfix anyway just to keep down the viruses/spam/vulnerabilities/cost.
It is scary to think of email coming under Microsoft's control but, it just ain't gonna happen. Most people agree that the solution to spam is a rewrite of SMTP. But, those same people acknowledge that it is unlikely to happen because it would require that EVERYONE switch at once and that is just not feasible. Therefore it is equally unfeasible for Microsoft to get EVERYONE to switch at once and at considerable expense to everyone.
While Bill might wet his bed at night dreaming of everyone using his proprietary email system, it will never be more than a wet dream.
This all works on the assumption that you accept string theory in the first place. While string theory may be the darling of astro physicists at the moment, it remains far from proven. If I were Haking, I'd defer payment for a while.
The ideas of copy-left, or of a more liberal regime of copyright, are receiving wider and wider support
Really? What a surprising finding. I would never have guessed that the vast majority of people, who happen to be the consumers of copyrighted material, would actually prefer the copy-left concept where that material was available to them free.
All sarcasm aside, people have always preferred free to paying for something but, the creators of the copyrighted material do deserve to make a living off of their work. The RIAA may be going to extremes with draconian practices but, the presently unspoken idea that "music wants to be free" is not justifiable. When I create a work, what ever it may be, I should have the right to determine how and by whom it may be used. The fact that someone else would rather have it for free is not an adequate reason for me to give it away if I choose not to.
My company is preparing to distribute an online Windows application that will change over time (don't they all?).
First question is; What is an online Windows application? Is this a web application or a Windows application? Or is it some totally new type of application?
The second thing is that, while bugs are inevitable and patches will almost certainly be a fact of life, are you sure that this appication is really as ready and as thoroughly tested as it could be? Or is this another rush to market job that is already a week overdue? If the application isn't really ready, wouldn't it be better to concentrate on improvements and bugfixes rather than patch managers and pushing it onto the poor unsuspecting users.
Radio Shack has learned from their mistakes of the past, thank goodness. Last year it finally dawned on Radio Shack that they were really angering their customers with the mandatory name and address BS just to buy a battery. They changed their policy to no longer ask for it and they even went so far as to run a radio advertising campaign, in my area, where the CEO apologized for their past policy and heralded the fact that it would no longer be the case.
You know you've pissed off your customers when the CEO has to go on the radio and tell everyone that he has learned and the policy is gone.
The individual that runs Groklaw isn't a lawyer either. So basically you're taking legal counsel, even if only by inference, from someone who is not a lawyer. Not a good start. Then you offer your ideas as advice to some one else, even worse for them.
But, even if you were a lawyer, it still wouldn't be up to you. Any ruling on the matter would be up to a judge or jury, not the lawyer and not necessarily any precedent. They often forget to mention that when doling out advice. Of course, win or lose, they aren't going to jail, you are.
Are you sure that you are using a good CD? I have used Knoppix on at least 50 completely different systems, different brands, ages, hardware, peripherals, etc, and have had almost no issues at all. In fact I frequently have to rely on Knoppix to figure out what drivers and settings I need when I am trying to install other distributions.
Frequently, some distribution or another won't detect a piece of hardware. I simply boot Knoppix, make a note of the drivers and their parameters and then specify them manually when installing the other distribution. Most recently I tried installing SuSE on a Compaq Proliant 3000. SuSE loaded a Compaq NIC driver but it would not activate the card. Knoppix had no problem with the card, or the Compaq Array controller, DLT tape library, or anything else. But, in the case of the NIC card, Knoppix chose an Intel driver instead of the Compaq driver that SuSE had chosen. I configured SuSE to use the same Intel driver and it worked fine from there on.
Frankly I am most annoyed by the various popular distributions because they each seem to have their own problems detecting hardware yet, Knoppix repeatedly has no such problem. I am constantly asking why the various distributions don't use Knoppix' hardware detection instead. And yes, I've had issues with Slack as well.
From the article it would seem that basic organizational skills would indeed be a new paradigm for the article's poster. He like many others is looking for a technical solution to an antiquated problem. He has a mess and is looking for an easy way to clean it up.
There is no "technological" way to clean it up. It requires basic organizational skills to keep it clean just like everything else in life. He needs to structure his work and keep things orderly. Instead he is throwing everything on the desktop, as a child thows its toys on the livingroom floor. Like the child he has allowed the clutter to build up to a point where he can no longer find what he wants. He needs to start acting like a parent. Putting things away when he is done with them.
"A place for everything and everything in its place." is what my great grand father use to drill into my head and it will always be true. No technology will replace this expression with the possible exception of rm -rf/ but, I assume the poster already knows that one.
One of the nice things about sites like Google and Slashdot is that they load rather quickly. Slashdot is not yet plagued by things like countless useless animations, excessive graphics and flash. I can't help but feel that is has a lot to do with the fact that Taco is viewing the site over a dialup connection.
If he moves to high-speed access I fear that it will only be a short while before new web "features" start taking over the site and it becomes as slow as all the rest.
I have always maintained that web developers should be forced to use their sites over bad dial-up connections so that they keep things compact and don't overload the site with bloated images and useless animation like so many do. There is nothing worse than being stuck behind a hotel PBX and having to work or access web sites via a 19200 dial-up connection.
Gee Bob, I really don't apreciate you sending me the HTML email with that ugly stationary theme and the 1 meg image in your sig!!! That inane "Wassup" message took ten figging minutes to download!!!!!
Just like the profound, paradigm-shifting, mind-blowing, earth shattering concept that was Application Service Providers(ASP).
For those that don't know it, the ASP model has generally proven to be a failure and this "new" concept seem like just another rehashing of the ASP model. But, this time they are going after CPU cycles rather than just applications.
The issue with swipe cards, that palm scanners eliminates, is that people often find ways to cheat the system. Certain individuals will get their friends to swipe or clock them in before their arrival at work. This was a very common problem with time clocks where someone would be late for work and they would call and have a coworker clock them in on-time even though the person didn't actually show up for work until an hour later. That's theft. This system prevents that possibillity as they cannot easily fake the palm scan. This saves the company a lot of money that it would otherwise be defrauded of.
I am aware of a very large produce packing company in south Florida that installed a similar system several years ago for tracking employee hours for the mostly migrant pickers and packagers. Prior to this system it was not uncommon for a quarter of the staff to not show up for work at all yet, still collect a paycheck for a full week's work. The companies facilities are very low tech overall, due to the nature of their business so, it was very surprising to see such a high tech time clock there.
In this particular case they used a number of hand scanners that measured the geometry of the persons hand for biometric identification. The company also found that the process of clocking in and out was much faster with this system as it illiminated the search for the time card on the wall and the examination of the timecard after it was punched. With the hand scanner the worker simply placed their hand on the scanner and when the light turned green it meant that they had successfully been identified and they moved on. Instead of taking one or more minutes for an individual to clock in, it now takes less than 15 seconds. This adds up when you start talking about crews in the hundreds.
Ok, bad examples. But, the fact remains that all it would take is a remote exploit in a commonly used daemon. syslogd, klogd, gpm, crond, cupsd, sshd, xinetd all run as root on most Linux systems. A remote exploit in any of these modules would allow the automated propogation of a malicious payload (worm) from one Linux system to another. All it needs is root.
You are assuming that such a worm will be like the countless outlook varieties. Obviously this will not be too effective against Linux. However, there are other means for worms to propogate such as the slammer worm. There are also numerous services that are fairly common across all Linux variants.
My guess is that if such a worm were to come about, it would likely spread through a hole in sendmail. Another, though less likely, possibility is Apache with special emphasis on PHP.
Yes, this capability is available but it requires special hardware.
There are two solutions that offer what you seek. First you can use server hardware like HP/Compaq with built in Out Of Band(OOB) management cards or Lights Out management cards in them. These cards are IP addressable and connect into the system's BIOS. They allow you to power the system on and off as well as view the boot up screens and even access and change the BIOS settings, all remotely. These are very powerful and indespensible for managing remote servers but, they are not cheap options that you will find in desktop class hardware.
The second option, and the one you will most likely want to use because it is far less expensive, is the IP enabled power switch. There are many different ones but, here is a simple example. Simply send the power on/off command to the power outlet and it restarts your system for you, remotely via TCP/IP. Not nearly as powerful as the Lights Out management card but it gets the blue screened PC rebooted, which is what you said you wanted.
A new distro arrives (that's not free for download) and the users of every other distro on the planet show up to bash it. Get over it people. If you don't like Xandros and would rather run Woody or Gentoo then do so. There's no reason to bash Xandros over it.
I too looked at the screen shots and I felt that Xandros has done a great job. The interface is clean, very clean. The menus are straight forward and uncluttered. The configuration utility has basic options up front and an advanced button to access all the less used config options that KDE offers. They made KDE better, addressing most of the issues of a recent OS News article on KDE, without dramatically changing KDE as Red Hat did with Blue Curve (irritating KDE users no end).
Xandros makes adjusting the screen size as simple as sliding a bar, versus manually editing XFree86Config. Sounds like a geat idea to me. They offer drag and drop cd burning versus the command line joys of cdda2wav cdparanoia cdrecord. Sounds great to me.
I see no reason whatsoever to bash Xandros over this release. It doesn't matter that you don't like its Windowsish looks. Do you really intend to stick Mom with a copy of Gentoo? I bet she'd rather the Windowsish look, at least at first. That is unless she's used a Mac and if she has, she ain't gonna think much about Gentoo/Slack/Debian/Mandrake/Xandros or what ever distro YOU think is the cat's pajamas.
So, how long will it be before warflying is illegal or requires a permit. Here's a funny/sad/true story about a guy who recently got into a lot of trouble for hunting from an airplane.
Slashdot Mirror
The reality of life is that WMV9 is one of the most, if not the most, used codecs around. Therefore it would have been poor testing and irresponsible reporting to have excluded it from the test.
What you suggest would be like a round up of office suites that tested Open Office, WordPerfect, Star Office and KDE Office but, didn't include Microsoft Office. You can't do that and expect to taken seriously.
On the other hand, their result was that WMV9 was the overall winner. My testing is based on what is most important to me. Quality. From a quality perspective I felt that DivX was the clear winner. Of the examples they gave, DivX was clearer and retained more detail than WMV9 in all but a very few cases.
Ok. encoding speed is somewhat important to a few people and bitrate is pretty important to most people but, quality is the most important to almost everyone. From a quality standpoint DivX is the clear winner. But, it still isn't broadcast quality let alone DVD quality.
You'd like to be on TV while you do a project that interests you. Doesn't everyone? But, the question is; is your project of interest to millions of people? Bare in mind that most people do not share your interest in ham radio, including myself.
You must ask yourself a few questions about the project. What about your event is going to draw the attention of millions of people? Is it really cool? It might be cold, being in Alaska but, not really "cool". Is it exciting? Is there life threatening danger or death defying stunts? Lots of high-speed action? Morbidity? Scantily clad chicks? Or is it a bunch of guys bundled up in parkas and huddled in front of radios cheering and high fiving because they were able to say, "I read you, five by five." to someone a couple of thousand miles away?
I suspect that the latter is likely the case and while it is very exciting for the participants of the event, spectators will be sleeping faster than thay would with a Nova episode about string theory. Steve Irwin might not interest you but, he interests a very large number of people for many different reasons. People tune in to watch because they are drawn to the "death defying stunts" of playing with poisonous snakes or "man eating" crocodiles. Some will watch because they don't want to miss when he finally gets bitten and they get their chance to say, "I knew that idiot was going to get it". Still others watch because they are interested in those animals or have never seen those animals for themselves.
The point is that while Steve Irwin may be of interest to millions of people for various reasons. A Ham operators club doing their thing on an island in Alaska just doesn't do it for most people. Sorry.
start thinking about how we persuade governments that market in software may eventually need to be regulated
Bad idea. If it needs to be regulated then I believe that your product is inadequate. If your product is the best, then the market will decide. Think about it for a minute. You have a free operating system with free applications that you claim to be superior to everything else yet, you then want/need government regulation and mandates to require people to use your "better product"? That just doesn't make sense.
I don't care what monopolistic practices Microsoft pulls, short of government mandates requiring Microsoft's use. If the product is truely better it will be chosen over others. The price is already right.
Asuuming that you don't use an asset management package that inventories the programs on a PC, I'm curious how you scan the network for spyware programs. Would you care to share your techniques and tools with the rest of us?
That may be a little on the high side but, 1 in 20 is way too low. Spyware is as out of control as spam is but, most people aren't aware of it, as they are with spam, so it doesn't get as much mention.
I have always thought of spyware as a virus. Perhaps not as destructive but, a virus none the less. Thus, I have always felt that the commercial anti-virus companies should make their software to detect and remove spyware just as they do viruses. As yet they do not but, there is a major need for it.
Now, many people will start rattling off the plethora of spyware detectors and adware look alikes but, the fact is that none of these programs is capable of detecting all of the various spyware in the wild. Additionally, since they are all small companies or free projects they aren't and will not be able to keep up with the flood of new spyware as it comes out. Only the major players like the present anti-virus companies will be able to do it effectively with frequent updates to catch the latest bugs.
Of course, the immediate solution is to not use Windows but, that is not going to happen and even if it did, there would be spyware for Mac and Linux after a while. It's getting to the point that the little voice in my head keeps screaming at me to block off all port 80 traffic.
If this scheme (somehow) takes off, it means that FOSS SMTP servers can't implement it (at least in IP-friendly countries). That means Exchange becomes the de facto mail server.
Hold on a second. In the beginning, MS MAIL and later Exchange didn't use SMTP. Microsoft mail systems were islands in the business world. In order for them to communicate with other mail systems a connector had to be set up between those systems. At the same time everyone else was using Sendmail and anyone could communicate with anyone else. It has only been in the past few years that Exchange became SMTP enabled and is now able to communicate with everyone else like the Unix people had been doing all along.
So, what's my point? The point is that while Exchange is immensely popular right now it is due to the ease of use and the feature set, not because it is a better system. In fact it wasn't until Microsoft improved Exchange by adding SMTP that so many companies started using it. Today Exchange uses SMTP exclusively, for server to server communication. There are too many, too good, FOSS mail systems out there for MS to implement an expensive scheme, with little hope of success, and have everyone adopt it. Think about it. Most big Exchange users front-end it with Sendmail or Postfix anyway just to keep down the viruses/spam/vulnerabilities/cost.
It is scary to think of email coming under Microsoft's control but, it just ain't gonna happen. Most people agree that the solution to spam is a rewrite of SMTP. But, those same people acknowledge that it is unlikely to happen because it would require that EVERYONE switch at once and that is just not feasible. Therefore it is equally unfeasible for Microsoft to get EVERYONE to switch at once and at considerable expense to everyone.
While Bill might wet his bed at night dreaming of everyone using his proprietary email system, it will never be more than a wet dream.
This all works on the assumption that you accept string theory in the first place. While string theory may be the darling of astro physicists at the moment, it remains far from proven. If I were Haking, I'd defer payment for a while.
The ideas of copy-left, or of a more liberal regime of copyright, are receiving wider and wider support
Really? What a surprising finding. I would never have guessed that the vast majority of people, who happen to be the consumers of copyrighted material, would actually prefer the copy-left concept where that material was available to them free.
All sarcasm aside, people have always preferred free to paying for something but, the creators of the copyrighted material do deserve to make a living off of their work. The RIAA may be going to extremes with draconian practices but, the presently unspoken idea that "music wants to be free" is not justifiable. When I create a work, what ever it may be, I should have the right to determine how and by whom it may be used. The fact that someone else would rather have it for free is not an adequate reason for me to give it away if I choose not to.
It isn't a patent yet. Search for applications rather than patents.
My company is preparing to distribute an online Windows application that will change over time (don't they all?).
First question is; What is an online Windows application? Is this a web application or a Windows application? Or is it some totally new type of application?
The second thing is that, while bugs are inevitable and patches will almost certainly be a fact of life, are you sure that this appication is really as ready and as thoroughly tested as it could be? Or is this another rush to market job that is already a week overdue? If the application isn't really ready, wouldn't it be better to concentrate on improvements and bugfixes rather than patch managers and pushing it onto the poor unsuspecting users.
Radio Shack has learned from their mistakes of the past, thank goodness. Last year it finally dawned on Radio Shack that they were really angering their customers with the mandatory name and address BS just to buy a battery. They changed their policy to no longer ask for it and they even went so far as to run a radio advertising campaign, in my area, where the CEO apologized for their past policy and heralded the fact that it would no longer be the case.
You know you've pissed off your customers when the CEO has to go on the radio and tell everyone that he has learned and the policy is gone.
"IANAL but I do read Groklaw"
The individual that runs Groklaw isn't a lawyer either. So basically you're taking legal counsel, even if only by inference, from someone who is not a lawyer. Not a good start. Then you offer your ideas as advice to some one else, even worse for them.
But, even if you were a lawyer, it still wouldn't be up to you. Any ruling on the matter would be up to a judge or jury, not the lawyer and not necessarily any precedent. They often forget to mention that when doling out advice. Of course, win or lose, they aren't going to jail, you are.
It's Debian. Use Apt-get. You can find sources here:
r nel-ima ge-2.6-686
# Kernel 2.6.0
http://packages.debian.org/testing/base/ke
deb http://www.backports.org/debian stable kernel-image-2.6.0-i386
deb-src http://www.backports.org/debian stable kernel-image-2.6.0-i386
deb http://www.backports.org/debian stable kernel-source-2.6.0
deb-src http://www.backports.org/debian stable kernel-source-2.6.0
To answer your question directly, I do not believe that upgrade functionality exists in the Knoppix distribution.
Are you sure that you are using a good CD? I have used Knoppix on at least 50 completely different systems, different brands, ages, hardware, peripherals, etc, and have had almost no issues at all. In fact I frequently have to rely on Knoppix to figure out what drivers and settings I need when I am trying to install other distributions.
Frequently, some distribution or another won't detect a piece of hardware. I simply boot Knoppix, make a note of the drivers and their parameters and then specify them manually when installing the other distribution. Most recently I tried installing SuSE on a Compaq Proliant 3000. SuSE loaded a Compaq NIC driver but it would not activate the card. Knoppix had no problem with the card, or the Compaq Array controller, DLT tape library, or anything else. But, in the case of the NIC card, Knoppix chose an Intel driver instead of the Compaq driver that SuSE had chosen. I configured SuSE to use the same Intel driver and it worked fine from there on.
Frankly I am most annoyed by the various popular distributions because they each seem to have their own problems detecting hardware yet, Knoppix repeatedly has no such problem. I am constantly asking why the various distributions don't use Knoppix' hardware detection instead. And yes, I've had issues with Slack as well.
From the article it would seem that basic organizational skills would indeed be a new paradigm for the article's poster. He like many others is looking for a technical solution to an antiquated problem. He has a mess and is looking for an easy way to clean it up.
/ but, I assume the poster already knows that one.
There is no "technological" way to clean it up. It requires basic organizational skills to keep it clean just like everything else in life. He needs to structure his work and keep things orderly. Instead he is throwing everything on the desktop, as a child thows its toys on the livingroom floor. Like the child he has allowed the clutter to build up to a point where he can no longer find what he wants. He needs to start acting like a parent. Putting things away when he is done with them.
"A place for everything and everything in its place." is what my great grand father use to drill into my head and it will always be true. No technology will replace this expression with the possible exception of rm -rf
One of the nice things about sites like Google and Slashdot is that they load rather quickly. Slashdot is not yet plagued by things like countless useless animations, excessive graphics and flash. I can't help but feel that is has a lot to do with the fact that Taco is viewing the site over a dialup connection.
If he moves to high-speed access I fear that it will only be a short while before new web "features" start taking over the site and it becomes as slow as all the rest.
I have always maintained that web developers should be forced to use their sites over bad dial-up connections so that they keep things compact and don't overload the site with bloated images and useless animation like so many do. There is nothing worse than being stuck behind a hotel PBX and having to work or access web sites via a 19200 dial-up connection.
Gee Bob, I really don't apreciate you sending me the HTML email with that ugly stationary theme and the 1 meg image in your sig!!! That inane "Wassup" message took ten figging minutes to download!!!!!
Just like the profound, paradigm-shifting, mind-blowing, earth shattering concept that was Application Service Providers(ASP).
For those that don't know it, the ASP model has generally proven to be a failure and this "new" concept seem like just another rehashing of the ASP model. But, this time they are going after CPU cycles rather than just applications.
The issue with swipe cards, that palm scanners eliminates, is that people often find ways to cheat the system. Certain individuals will get their friends to swipe or clock them in before their arrival at work. This was a very common problem with time clocks where someone would be late for work and they would call and have a coworker clock them in on-time even though the person didn't actually show up for work until an hour later. That's theft. This system prevents that possibillity as they cannot easily fake the palm scan. This saves the company a lot of money that it would otherwise be defrauded of.
I am aware of a very large produce packing company in south Florida that installed a similar system several years ago for tracking employee hours for the mostly migrant pickers and packagers. Prior to this system it was not uncommon for a quarter of the staff to not show up for work at all yet, still collect a paycheck for a full week's work. The companies facilities are very low tech overall, due to the nature of their business so, it was very surprising to see such a high tech time clock there.
In this particular case they used a number of hand scanners that measured the geometry of the persons hand for biometric identification. The company also found that the process of clocking in and out was much faster with this system as it illiminated the search for the time card on the wall and the examination of the timecard after it was punched. With the hand scanner the worker simply placed their hand on the scanner and when the light turned green it meant that they had successfully been identified and they moved on. Instead of taking one or more minutes for an individual to clock in, it now takes less than 15 seconds. This adds up when you start talking about crews in the hundreds.
Ok, bad examples. But, the fact remains that all it would take is a remote exploit in a commonly used daemon. syslogd, klogd, gpm, crond, cupsd, sshd, xinetd all run as root on most Linux systems. A remote exploit in any of these modules would allow the automated propogation of a malicious payload (worm) from one Linux system to another. All it needs is root.
You are assuming that such a worm will be like the countless outlook varieties. Obviously this will not be too effective against Linux. However, there are other means for worms to propogate such as the slammer worm. There are also numerous services that are fairly common across all Linux variants.
My guess is that if such a worm were to come about, it would likely spread through a hole in sendmail. Another, though less likely, possibility is Apache with special emphasis on PHP.
I didn't find a video but, this site clearly explains antibubbles and includes several good pictures of them.
Yes, this capability is available but it requires special hardware.
There are two solutions that offer what you seek. First you can use server hardware like HP/Compaq with built in Out Of Band(OOB) management cards or Lights Out management cards in them. These cards are IP addressable and connect into the system's BIOS. They allow you to power the system on and off as well as view the boot up screens and even access and change the BIOS settings, all remotely. These are very powerful and indespensible for managing remote servers but, they are not cheap options that you will find in desktop class hardware.
The second option, and the one you will most likely want to use because it is far less expensive, is the IP enabled power switch. There are many different ones but, here is a simple example. Simply send the power on/off command to the power outlet and it restarts your system for you, remotely via TCP/IP. Not nearly as powerful as the Lights Out management card but it gets the blue screened PC rebooted, which is what you said you wanted.
A new distro arrives (that's not free for download) and the users of every other distro on the planet show up to bash it. Get over it people. If you don't like Xandros and would rather run Woody or Gentoo then do so. There's no reason to bash Xandros over it.
I too looked at the screen shots and I felt that Xandros has done a great job. The interface is clean, very clean. The menus are straight forward and uncluttered. The configuration utility has basic options up front and an advanced button to access all the less used config options that KDE offers. They made KDE better, addressing most of the issues of a recent OS News article on KDE, without dramatically changing KDE as Red Hat did with Blue Curve (irritating KDE users no end).
Xandros makes adjusting the screen size as simple as sliding a bar, versus manually editing XFree86Config. Sounds like a geat idea to me. They offer drag and drop cd burning versus the command line joys of cdda2wav cdparanoia cdrecord. Sounds great to me.
I see no reason whatsoever to bash Xandros over this release. It doesn't matter that you don't like its Windowsish looks. Do you really intend to stick Mom with a copy of Gentoo? I bet she'd rather the Windowsish look, at least at first. That is unless she's used a Mac and if she has, she ain't gonna think much about Gentoo/Slack/Debian/Mandrake/Xandros or what ever distro YOU think is the cat's pajamas.
So, how long will it be before warflying is illegal or requires a permit. Here's a funny/sad/true story about a guy who recently got into a lot of trouble for hunting from an airplane.