1- They will be aware that their OS isn't perfect. Healthy paranoia is essential to running a system that is secure. If you're not healthily paranoid... "That update? I'll download it later. First I'm gonna download this latest and greatest 3D Game and give it a go."
2- If they are aware that there is currently a vulnurability for... Safari, they have the option of using an alternative browser until the vulnurability is patched. Quicktime? They're aware there is a problem, and put off on downloading quicktime from unknown sources for a while. (Brittney Spears porn? That can wait until a patch is out!)
Bottom line- If Apple DOES NOT let their users know about a vulnurability and nothing happens--no biggie. If Apple knows about a vulnurability and DOES NOT let its users know, and something does happen.. Boom, Apple's got a virus, or a remote root exploit, and everyone knows about it. If Apple says "We knew", then they're guilty of not informing their customers. If Apple says "We didn't know", then they're guilty of not knowing how to secure their OS, and not keeping on top of things.
Apple's got a small marketshare that they're trying to increase, and they're trying to burst into a new market where people are still skeptical. Covert cloak and daggar "security by obscurity" is never a good thing, and in this market it will only alienate. It's MUCH better for Apple to say "We have a vulnurability... And three hours later we have a patch."
It is if Apple ships with a version of Apache that is exploitable and does not issue an Average-User-Enabled (ie: no compiling necessary) patch within a decent amount of time. Apple including server software with an OS that goes out to people who have no idea what a server is, or the impact of running one.. does make it their problem.
Actually, when there are multiple admins on a server, there are usually so many that at least one admin has enough brains to put security policies in place that disallow weak passwords.
In fact, it's the one thing drilled into your brain during MCSE training and exams. Security policies. Mandating them for everyone on the system--admin or no admin.
Heh. It's actually more about the tech staff and cost of operation than it is about teaching kids on a standardized platform to alleviate the burden on the teacher. I don't think the teachers really give a damn (unless they fall into the categories of wintel or apple fanatics who would sooner burn alive on a stake than use a machine that's NOT THEIR PLATFORM)
It's generally cheaper and easier to standardize on a platform- one tech department, one head of tech department, one OS to test new employees on. Single large purchase of machines and software (bulk, high numberes) instead of trying to maintain smaller numbers of multiple machines spanning different platforms. hard disk imaging to copy what needs to be on each computer, and to restore after the kids have messed it up. It's just easier when a particular platform is being used, rather than multiple platforms.
So. Education aside, it does make sense to standardize. And. Like you said- teaching children at that age how to use a particular platform is the opposite of what they should be doing, and if they can't teach on any platform, then there's something wrong. No need to have multiple platforms.
And it's far easier for a school to migrate completly to Windows than it is for a school to migrate completely to Macs. Unfortunately. Both Mr. Monopoly and the ability to clone comes into play. People believe that more software runs on Windows just because they haven't heard of the Mac before. And you can purchase a large number of whiteboxes or Dells for far less than you can purchase a lot of apples. Are they of equal/better quality? Perhaps not. But what the schools care about is cost. Apple just isn't cost effective for education these days. Damned shame. I grew up learning on Macs, and think they're great for the educational market interface-wise.
Hm. Offer rental credits for returning the expired DVDs for recycling. The convenience factor would still be there--no one would HAVE to bring the DVDs back, or bring them back within a certain timeframe. And Blockbuster could quickly rack up more rentals which would pay off any recycling fees involved. Plus they would get the reputation of being green/good for the environment rather than being bad, because "look, we're recycling! We encourage people to recycle!".
If I recall, "community service" was not strictly defined by either the parent or grandparent post. It was open ended.
Strictly defined community service is absolutely a bad thing. A policy requiring monetary donations to a specific group, volunteering for a specific religious entity, etc. is BAD.
Generic "community service required" is not. Volunteer at the local pound, pick up trash off the highway, visit seniors in the nursing home, join a trail clearing crew for the state forest, do paperwork for a homeless shelter, volunteer at planned parenthoood, volunteer at your particular church, design a website for the local Lions club, participating in the development of an open source project.. A variety of choices, a variety of opportunities, all undisputably "community service". While some of these might be objectionable to certain groups, none of them would be forced on the group as a whole, I would assume? I wouldn't think that any of these things would be enforceable on a group as a whole. The only thing that would be a "problem" is the employer defining what is NOT community service.
Since "community service" is regularly imposed on people by the judicial system of the United States, I'm assuming that different types of community service can be found for nearly any type of person that the person will not feel is in violation of their religion, beliefs, etc. Unless the person feels that contributing to the community is Not a Good Thing.
I used to argue that when I was going to a school that required community service. I still believe that it's wrong for a school (at least, a high school) to require it--because no element of choice is involved.
However, for a workplace... I'm assuming that the community service requirement is made known upfront. This means that should a prospective employee disagree with the idea, they would be given a chance to turn down the position and look elsewhere. All the community service requirement is, is another type of "filter" for the type of people you want working for you. People who don't have a problem with doing community service tend to share a variety of traits that are desirable in an employee.
As for the "it's not their job". It *is* their job if the requirement is made known up-front. The employer decides the criteria of the job.. If the criteria of the job is that all programmers must make coffee once a week, and vacuum on tuesdays, then making coffee and vacuuming are part of the job.
The hours the employee must put into community service will be factored into their decision on whether or not to take the position at this place of employment. If the hours are paid hours, then that will be factored in. If the hours are unpaid hours, then it will bring the average hourly pay down, and the prospective employee must factor this in.
Err. The sysadmin took a working email system and swapped it out for a working email system that the syadmin was incompentent to set up. If the sysadmin had taken a working MS solution and swapped it out for a non-working qmail solution, then he would have been just as much a moron. But because it was a non-MS->MS migration, somehow it's MS's fault? Nah, I'm not saying that MS software is fault-free, they've got some pretty interesting bugs and issues. I'm just saying that if you take a moron and put him/her on even the best most stable most fantastic software that is so easy to use that a monkey will be at home... They'll still fuck it up. It's not an MS thing. It's a moron thing. MS just seems to attract more than its fair share of morons because they think "Oh. I don't have to read a configuration file".
The parent of this thread was a post that said "No one ever got fired for buying MS". And this guy didn't get fired for buying MS. He got fired for not being able to do his job. Even if he hadn't bought into the whole MS thing, he probably STILL would have gotten fired.
Err. That seems more like a story of professional incompetence than it does of crap software. MS software (aside from putting their settings in half a freaking million places) is fairly easy to use when you know which buttons to press. It's just a bad idea for other reasons. Take your "points" where you can score them, and don't try to bash every single aspect of MS--it just makes you seem like a lunatic zealot, and makes people less likely to believe anything positive about whatever platform you do advocate.
The proper way of going about it is to say "yeah, MS software does some cool stuff, and has some cool features. BUT it's unstable and insecure--and those are the two primary concerns when you're running a server." That's something people can't really argue with (although they try.;) ) and it makes them think rather than chalking you up as a nutcase dirty-hippie Linux/BSD/OS X freak.
It also gives you more weight in the tech world. I mean. "Moron A can't set up a Windows server and make it work" isn't really a news-breaking story. I mean. Moron A probably can't set up any other server and have it work, either. In fact, Moron A probably can't tie his shoes or walk in a straight line--that doesn't mean the shoes he's wearing are a bad product, it merely means he's an idiot. The shoes might be a bad product in ADDITION to his being an idiot, but.. Err. It's much more impressive when someone who's bright and intelligent and wonderful can't set up the OS. Really.
I think you've never had to deal with explaining a complex topic to a sub-average user, because explaining to an "average" user how to change a homepage is a piece of cake, whereas explaining to my sister how to open a.jpg file off a CD, re-size it so that it's not ridiculously large, attach it to an email, and send it to me is NOT a piece of cake. *THAT* is a pain in the ass. Explaining how to change a homepage, by comparison, is pitifully simple.
As for "They'll figure out how to use it again"--this means either doing the 10 minutes of research that average-bright users do, or instant messaging their personal ubergeek and saying "HELP!", now the ubergeek is more than likely to know of the problem. Besides, it's pretty much as simple as creating a fixhomepage.reg file with
and having the user download it, and double click it. Presto-changeo, the homepage is now google.com
So, basically the average user just has to be able to say "Err. This isn't working" and contact that uber-geek that *every* average user has, and the ubergeek will either give them a registry key similar to the one above, or step them through fixing it.
I never claimed "When necessary, all average users will grow brains". I know that's impossible.;)
-Sara
Re:They needed three days to figure this out?
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And how will people cause problems for them? Spam isn't exactly illegal just yet. Besides, next time around they just have to send the spam from somewhere else, and how are you going to know it's them? By giving them a valid email address, you're adding yourself to their list, or promoting your value on the list. They don't care if you actually buy anything--you're just making their list more valuable because you're "live". The spammers aren't usually the businessmen with a product to sell--their product is your email address--the more email addresses their clients mail goes out to, the more money they make.
As for forged headers... Of course it's trivial to determine which headers are forged. The point isn't to trick the spammer into thinking that you're complaining from a valid address that is different from your real address. It's to mask your real address so it doesn't get added to a list.
-Sara
Re:They needed three days to figure this out?
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usually end up zapping the guy with the open proxy or the poorly secured CGI mailback form, not the guys who actually cause the problems.
Err. They may not be the ones who are spamming, but they're the ones responsible for the tool the spammer is using. Just like the guys who are the admins of the virus-infected Windows computers that like to pollute everyone's logs. They're not the virus authors, but they're responsible for patching their systems. The ISP should take them off-line temporarily and require that they clean up their act.
-Sara
Re:They needed three days to figure this out?
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Nothing. Unless lastvaliddomain.com is actually owned by the spammer, in which case they get a live email address to play with. Spammers love live email addresses. Unless you forge your headers so they can't tell where it's coming from.
Who needs hotmail? I get plently of penis enlargement advertising, complete with pictures, at my work email address. Makes me a very popular girl.
They just need to use the freaking internet, and participate in normal venues of conversation. and have a non.gov email address. And within a few months they'll know how much of a negative thing spam is. Especially if they have to use regular dialup.
Currently, probably not many. But if there were to be a malicious little snippet of code that changed their homepage to the crash page, and it did this to a lot of people, the knowledge would spread pretty quickly. Especially since most non-geeks have geek friends that they can email/IM and yammer at until they find a solution. Then there will be the little news snippets on TV... And the magazines that love to have every over-used troubleshooting technique.
I don't see the "lack of knowledge" in this area being a major one. If someone uses IE on a regular basis and suddenly can't use IE, they'll figure out how to use it again. This is a very different situation than all those nasty little root exploits that don't give the end-user any visible grief at all, and thus don't warrant any attempt to fix.;)
Anything that effects a user's applications in an *obvious* way worries them, even if it's not dangerous at all. Whereas, truly dangerous things that don't impact the end-user's perception of their machine--doesn't seem to bother them. Look at all the nice little virus-infected windows computers that are out there trying to spread their viruses--and no one seems to give a damn because the machines appear to continue functioning for the "important" stuff like surfing the web and checking email.
That's normal--our memory is only partially reality based, and our brains tend to sort through things and try to make memories "coherent". Since we see things in color, and hear language being spoken, our brains are going to tell us "color" and "spoken" when we look back at the memories. Even when things aren't color or spoken/heard.
Where it gets interesting is in cases like mine. I haven't used my ears to recieve language in over 17 years. All language, to me, is a visual thing, but I remember it as sound. Written language, subtitles, things read on peoples lips, even sign language. I even "hear" distinct voices for each person I'm remembering in my head, even though I have never heard the voices of most people.
I don't know if it's because sound is easier to remember than vision, or if pathways were established in my brain early on prior to my hearing loss that strongly tied language to sound. Or if maybe the human brain has pre-existing links from the beginning.
The brain is excellent at compensating for lack of information. This tends to be particularly common with bright people. I recall reading a story about a deaf boy whose parents never knew he was deaf because he picked up on how THEY reacted to things happening, and he was extremely observant. Apparently he didn't know he was deaf, either. When someone dropped a spoon, he thought they reacted to the sight of the dropping spoon, and not to the sound that it made.
Different colors have different "temperatures", as well. These may still be distinguishable when the color itself can't be seen. I'm deaf, and cannot hear the words people say, but I can hear the tone, the mood, the changes in volume, etc. Just because part of an ability is missing doesn't mean the whole ability is missing.
Heh. I used to watch startrek (TNG) as a kid, on a black and white TV. I always thought the uniforms were blue. I was oddly disturbed when I first saw it on TV and realized that Captain Picard's uniform was *red*. How.. Un-captainly.
I'm deaf. You're mistaking "deaf" with "profoundly deaf" or "the total lack of hearing". Even the profoundly deaf can experience a concert through the vibrations in the floors and seats (this obviously won't work for quiet classical music.) but most "deaf" people can hear a range of sounds, and some concerts will be in that range of sounds. They'll hear the sounds as sounds, just as different sounds than the rest of the world. For example, my hearing loss is mostly on lower frequencies--so I'll hear everything at a higher pitch.
However. My eyes/ears have a closer bond than is normal, because I use my eyes to hear people talking, and to anticipate when and where sounds should occur when I can't hear them as well as I should. This results in funny cross-wirings like "hearing" closed captioning (I can never remember closed captioning, I always remember that I "heard" a TV show, even though that's an impossibility. I also "see" sounds. Like I'll be listening to a song, and later I'll remember it as colors and things, rather than as tunes or sounds. And when I take out one of my hearing aids and leave the other one in, I have difficulty seeing out of the eye on the side of the hearing aid I took out. If I take both out, I can see fine. When I take off my glasses, sound gets "quieter"--because part of my perception of sound is "a sound should be there because I'm seeing an action that should result in sound".
Err. The "grocery store" part of his comment was "it's okay to NOT get dressed up to go to the grocery store".;) Read a little more carefully.
It sounds like all he's saying is that a balance is good, and geek girls tend to find it harder to strike that balance. Making it so that some guys prefer the little ditzy girl who puts on heels and makeup and prances around knowing nothing, and not caring that she knows nothing. Each to his own.
Heh. You should really try bigger heels. Nothing rocks more than being many inches above the crowd.;) (5'11 here)
With me, the biggest problem is getting *away* from the geekiness. I think about geeky things when I'm out. If I'm out with a geek, I tend to talk about geeky things when I'm out. This is sometimes pleasant, and sometimes not. It's why I tend to go for non-geeky guys/girls more often than their counterparts--because sometimes I just want to pretend I'm normal and not play uber-geek. I think a lot of guys feel that way, too. Geek is all fun and games until you want to talk about something not within the geeky realm. (Although, I have an increasingly difficult time talking with non geeks. I'll do things like saying "woot", "borked", etc. or in IM conversations using the != thing. Not to mention babbling happily about my current projects that are full of "huh? what?" words and concepts.)
Besides, geek girls tend to have some issues because they're constantly having either their geekitude or their girliness questioned, therefore they want to prove both. So they'll get all flirty and stuff, and then turn around and start going overboard talking about how geeky they are. Geek guys do the same thing to an extent, but it's more like "Look at what a big brain I have."
It's great that you're a balanced geek girl and all, but some geek guys just don't want geek girls for whatever combination of reasons.
And not every prissy little girl is oblivious to a philips and a torx.;)
Interesting. Mine goes more along the lines of:
1- Buy a bunch of crap.
2- Cut out rebate form and UPC
3- Make copies
4- Fill out little "return receipt required" form at the PO and pay a buck or so more
5- Send in.
6- Wait 2 weeks to a month
7- Recieve check.
8- Let check sit on my desk until it is almost bad, then make a mad rush to the bank to cash it.
If you send them in with proof that they were sent in, the person doing the signing doesn't want to get in trouble, and ensures that it is processed.
And if it's not, you have proof that you sent it. At the very least you could always do a small claims against the company.
Time consuming, though. Generally not worth it for rebates under $50, and even over $50 I do stop and think for a little bit. Last rebate I did was a couple hundred off a huge monitor. Rebate took about two weeks. (Sony)
Linux's patches seldom require more than any-to-a-couple minutes downtime, whereas Microsoft's patches can require major downtime, decreased performance, and the chance your system won't boot back up properly after installing. (I've never had issues with Linux in that regard.)
As for disconnecting users. If you're running a mission-critical operation, it's usually assumed you'd have one or more "secondary" servers for load balancing and uptime. In which case you can prevent new connections from being initiated, which will allow the currently connected users to finish their tasks and disconnect normally. New connections would be initiated with the secondary servers. When no one (or very few people) are connected to the primary server, patch and restart (service or computer.) Repeat with the secondaries. Technically you can do this with Microsoft products as well, it just means more downtime and hair-pulling.
Either that, or have a clearly posted downtime on the site handling the downloads. It's common practice even among LARGE companies (think authorize.net, XO, etc.) to have periodic downtimes for upgrades.
With Linux, most patches really don't take all that long, particularly if you're using something like up2date or apt-get.
Err. Not quite. One of the benefits of OSS software is that patches are released frequently, thus keeping your system secure is easy. Proprietary software/OSes tend to release patches less frequently, keeping you vulnurable.
The "patches are unnecessary" approach wouldn't keep you very secure, reliable, or stable. Quite the opposite.
(Yes, I realize you're being funny. But the whole Linux is invulnurable" attitude that is growing daily is... Well.. scary.)
Err. That's like saying 'I've had apples, oranges, and pears, and pears suck the worst. Sorry." Back it up, for God's sake.
Are you talking about the GUI? And in the case of Linux, which GUI? They all have their pro's and cons, and a lot of what's considered a pro and a con depends on the task you're using it for. ie: XFCE works great for my laptop, but on my better equipped desktop I tend to like KDE or Gnome better because they're more full-featured (think: bloated) I'm not really a big fan of either the Windows or OS X GUIs, either. Look-wise I like KDE. Functionality-wise I like KDE. Stability-wise I like Windows XP.
Or are you talking about the file system... The kernel... The shell? The applications? The installation? The security? The quality of the media you purchase it on? The updates? The licensing?
If you're going to say it sucks, at least say it in a manner that resembles intelligence. Otherwise I'm tempted to just dismiss you as a complete idiot. In fact, I think I might do that anyway. Especially after reading some of your other clueless posts regarding Linux. Particularly about those running Linux on a Mac. "Why do you want to buy a perfectly good computer with OS X on it and ruin it by running Linux?" Like duh. Some of us LIKE Linux, LIKE Mac hardware, but can't stand the eye candy that is OS X.
Your arguements/attitude are so close-minded it's no surprise you don't "get it". "It sucks, just 'cuz I dun like it." Bah.
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Benefits of letting your users know:
1- They will be aware that their OS isn't perfect. Healthy paranoia is essential to running a system that is secure. If you're not healthily paranoid... "That update? I'll download it later. First I'm gonna download this latest and greatest 3D Game and give it a go."
2- If they are aware that there is currently a vulnurability for... Safari, they have the option of using an alternative browser until the vulnurability is patched. Quicktime? They're aware there is a problem, and put off on downloading quicktime from unknown sources for a while. (Brittney Spears porn? That can wait until a patch is out!)
Bottom line- If Apple DOES NOT let their users know about a vulnurability and nothing happens--no biggie. If Apple knows about a vulnurability and DOES NOT let its users know, and something does happen.. Boom, Apple's got a virus, or a remote root exploit, and everyone knows about it. If Apple says "We knew", then they're guilty of not informing their customers. If Apple says "We didn't know", then they're guilty of not knowing how to secure their OS, and not keeping on top of things.
Apple's got a small marketshare that they're trying to increase, and they're trying to burst into a new market where people are still skeptical. Covert cloak and daggar "security by obscurity" is never a good thing, and in this market it will only alienate. It's MUCH better for Apple to say "We have a vulnurability... And three hours later we have a patch."
-Sara
It is if Apple ships with a version of Apache that is exploitable and does not issue an Average-User-Enabled (ie: no compiling necessary) patch within a decent amount of time. Apple including server software with an OS that goes out to people who have no idea what a server is, or the impact of running one.. does make it their problem.
...but what about those of us who speak Aramic?
The point is that it's there for those inclined to see, to do, to touch, and to modify. And it makes all the difference.
-Sara
Actually, when there are multiple admins on a server, there are usually so many that at least one admin has enough brains to put security policies in place that disallow weak passwords.
In fact, it's the one thing drilled into your brain during MCSE training and exams. Security policies. Mandating them for everyone on the system--admin or no admin.
-Sara
Heh. It's actually more about the tech staff and cost of operation than it is about teaching kids on a standardized platform to alleviate the burden on the teacher. I don't think the teachers really give a damn (unless they fall into the categories of wintel or apple fanatics who would sooner burn alive on a stake than use a machine that's NOT THEIR PLATFORM)
It's generally cheaper and easier to standardize on a platform- one tech department, one head of tech department, one OS to test new employees on. Single large purchase of machines and software (bulk, high numberes) instead of trying to maintain smaller numbers of multiple machines spanning different platforms. hard disk imaging to copy what needs to be on each computer, and to restore after the kids have messed it up. It's just easier when a particular platform is being used, rather than multiple platforms.
So. Education aside, it does make sense to standardize. And. Like you said- teaching children at that age how to use a particular platform is the opposite of what they should be doing, and if they can't teach on any platform, then there's something wrong. No need to have multiple platforms.
And it's far easier for a school to migrate completly to Windows than it is for a school to migrate completely to Macs. Unfortunately. Both Mr. Monopoly and the ability to clone comes into play. People believe that more software runs on Windows just because they haven't heard of the Mac before. And you can purchase a large number of whiteboxes or Dells for far less than you can purchase a lot of apples. Are they of equal/better quality? Perhaps not. But what the schools care about is cost. Apple just isn't cost effective for education these days. Damned shame. I grew up learning on Macs, and think they're great for the educational market interface-wise.
-Sara
Hm. Offer rental credits for returning the expired DVDs for recycling. The convenience factor would still be there--no one would HAVE to bring the DVDs back, or bring them back within a certain timeframe. And Blockbuster could quickly rack up more rentals which would pay off any recycling fees involved. Plus they would get the reputation of being green/good for the environment rather than being bad, because "look, we're recycling! We encourage people to recycle!".
-Sara
Err.
If I recall, "community service" was not strictly defined by either the parent or grandparent post. It was open ended.
Strictly defined community service is absolutely a bad thing. A policy requiring monetary donations to a specific group, volunteering for a specific religious entity, etc. is BAD.
Generic "community service required" is not. Volunteer at the local pound, pick up trash off the highway, visit seniors in the nursing home, join a trail clearing crew for the state forest, do paperwork for a homeless shelter, volunteer at planned parenthoood, volunteer at your particular church, design a website for the local Lions club, participating in the development of an open source project.. A variety of choices, a variety of opportunities, all undisputably "community service". While some of these might be objectionable to certain groups, none of them would be forced on the group as a whole, I would assume? I wouldn't think that any of these things would be enforceable on a group as a whole. The only thing that would be a "problem" is the employer defining what is NOT community service.
Since "community service" is regularly imposed on people by the judicial system of the United States, I'm assuming that different types of community service can be found for nearly any type of person that the person will not feel is in violation of their religion, beliefs, etc. Unless the person feels that contributing to the community is Not a Good Thing.
-Sara -Sara
I used to argue that when I was going to a school that required community service. I still believe that it's wrong for a school (at least, a high school) to require it--because no element of choice is involved.
However, for a workplace... I'm assuming that the community service requirement is made known upfront. This means that should a prospective employee disagree with the idea, they would be given a chance to turn down the position and look elsewhere. All the community service requirement is, is another type of "filter" for the type of people you want working for you. People who don't have a problem with doing community service tend to share a variety of traits that are desirable in an employee.
As for the "it's not their job". It *is* their job if the requirement is made known up-front. The employer decides the criteria of the job.. If the criteria of the job is that all programmers must make coffee once a week, and vacuum on tuesdays, then making coffee and vacuuming are part of the job.
The hours the employee must put into community service will be factored into their decision on whether or not to take the position at this place of employment. If the hours are paid hours, then that will be factored in. If the hours are unpaid hours, then it will bring the average hourly pay down, and the prospective employee must factor this in.
-Sara
Err. The sysadmin took a working email system and swapped it out for a working email system that the syadmin was incompentent to set up. If the sysadmin had taken a working MS solution and swapped it out for a non-working qmail solution, then he would have been just as much a moron. But because it was a non-MS->MS migration, somehow it's MS's fault? Nah, I'm not saying that MS software is fault-free, they've got some pretty interesting bugs and issues. I'm just saying that if you take a moron and put him/her on even the best most stable most fantastic software that is so easy to use that a monkey will be at home... They'll still fuck it up. It's not an MS thing. It's a moron thing. MS just seems to attract more than its fair share of morons because they think "Oh. I don't have to read a configuration file".
The parent of this thread was a post that said "No one ever got fired for buying MS". And this guy didn't get fired for buying MS. He got fired for not being able to do his job. Even if he hadn't bought into the whole MS thing, he probably STILL would have gotten fired.
-Sara
Err. That seems more like a story of professional incompetence than it does of crap software. MS software (aside from putting their settings in half a freaking million places) is fairly easy to use when you know which buttons to press. It's just a bad idea for other reasons. Take your "points" where you can score them, and don't try to bash every single aspect of MS--it just makes you seem like a lunatic zealot, and makes people less likely to believe anything positive about whatever platform you do advocate.
;) ) and it makes them think rather than chalking you up as a nutcase dirty-hippie Linux/BSD/OS X freak.
The proper way of going about it is to say "yeah, MS software does some cool stuff, and has some cool features. BUT it's unstable and insecure--and those are the two primary concerns when you're running a server." That's something people can't really argue with (although they try.
It also gives you more weight in the tech world. I mean. "Moron A can't set up a Windows server and make it work" isn't really a news-breaking story. I mean. Moron A probably can't set up any other server and have it work, either. In fact, Moron A probably can't tie his shoes or walk in a straight line--that doesn't mean the shoes he's wearing are a bad product, it merely means he's an idiot. The shoes might be a bad product in ADDITION to his being an idiot, but.. Err. It's much more impressive when someone who's bright and intelligent and wonderful can't set up the OS. Really.
-Sara
I think you've never had to deal with explaining a complex topic to a sub-average user, because explaining to an "average" user how to change a homepage is a piece of cake, whereas explaining to my sister how to open a .jpg file off a CD, re-size it so that it's not ridiculously large, attach it to an email, and send it to me is NOT a piece of cake. *THAT* is a pain in the ass. Explaining how to change a homepage, by comparison, is pitifully simple.
;)
As for "They'll figure out how to use it again"--this means either doing the 10 minutes of research that average-bright users do, or instant messaging their personal ubergeek and saying "HELP!", now the ubergeek is more than likely to know of the problem. Besides, it's pretty much as simple as creating a fixhomepage.reg file with
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
"Start Page"="http://www.google.com"
and having the user download it, and double click it. Presto-changeo, the homepage is now google.com
So, basically the average user just has to be able to say "Err. This isn't working" and contact that uber-geek that *every* average user has, and the ubergeek will either give them a registry key similar to the one above, or step them through fixing it.
I never claimed "When necessary, all average users will grow brains". I know that's impossible.
-Sara
And how will people cause problems for them? Spam isn't exactly illegal just yet. Besides, next time around they just have to send the spam from somewhere else, and how are you going to know it's them? By giving them a valid email address, you're adding yourself to their list, or promoting your value on the list. They don't care if you actually buy anything--you're just making their list more valuable because you're "live". The spammers aren't usually the businessmen with a product to sell--their product is your email address--the more email addresses their clients mail goes out to, the more money they make.
As for forged headers... Of course it's trivial to determine which headers are forged. The point isn't to trick the spammer into thinking that you're complaining from a valid address that is different from your real address. It's to mask your real address so it doesn't get added to a list.
-Sara
usually end up zapping the guy with the open proxy or the poorly secured CGI mailback form, not the guys who actually cause the problems.
Err. They may not be the ones who are spamming, but they're the ones responsible for the tool the spammer is using. Just like the guys who are the admins of the virus-infected Windows computers that like to pollute everyone's logs. They're not the virus authors, but they're responsible for patching their systems. The ISP should take them off-line temporarily and require that they clean up their act.
-Sara
Nothing. Unless lastvaliddomain.com is actually owned by the spammer, in which case they get a live email address to play with. Spammers love live email addresses. Unless you forge your headers so they can't tell where it's coming from.
-Sara
Who needs hotmail? I get plently of penis enlargement advertising, complete with pictures, at my work email address. Makes me a very popular girl.
.gov email address. And within a few months they'll know how much of a negative thing spam is. Especially if they have to use regular dialup.
They just need to use the freaking internet, and participate in normal venues of conversation. and have a non
-Sara
Currently, probably not many. But if there were to be a malicious little snippet of code that changed their homepage to the crash page, and it did this to a lot of people, the knowledge would spread pretty quickly. Especially since most non-geeks have geek friends that they can email/IM and yammer at until they find a solution. Then there will be the little news snippets on TV... And the magazines that love to have every over-used troubleshooting technique.
;)
I don't see the "lack of knowledge" in this area being a major one. If someone uses IE on a regular basis and suddenly can't use IE, they'll figure out how to use it again. This is a very different situation than all those nasty little root exploits that don't give the end-user any visible grief at all, and thus don't warrant any attempt to fix.
Anything that effects a user's applications in an *obvious* way worries them, even if it's not dangerous at all. Whereas, truly dangerous things that don't impact the end-user's perception of their machine--doesn't seem to bother them. Look at all the nice little virus-infected windows computers that are out there trying to spread their viruses--and no one seems to give a damn because the machines appear to continue functioning for the "important" stuff like surfing the web and checking email.
-Sara
That's normal--our memory is only partially reality based, and our brains tend to sort through things and try to make memories "coherent". Since we see things in color, and hear language being spoken, our brains are going to tell us "color" and "spoken" when we look back at the memories. Even when things aren't color or spoken/heard.
Where it gets interesting is in cases like mine. I haven't used my ears to recieve language in over 17 years. All language, to me, is a visual thing, but I remember it as sound. Written language, subtitles, things read on peoples lips, even sign language. I even "hear" distinct voices for each person I'm remembering in my head, even though I have never heard the voices of most people.
I don't know if it's because sound is easier to remember than vision, or if pathways were established in my brain early on prior to my hearing loss that strongly tied language to sound. Or if maybe the human brain has pre-existing links from the beginning.
-Sara
The brain is excellent at compensating for lack of information. This tends to be particularly common with bright people. I recall reading a story about a deaf boy whose parents never knew he was deaf because he picked up on how THEY reacted to things happening, and he was extremely observant. Apparently he didn't know he was deaf, either. When someone dropped a spoon, he thought they reacted to the sight of the dropping spoon, and not to the sound that it made.
Different colors have different "temperatures", as well. These may still be distinguishable when the color itself can't be seen. I'm deaf, and cannot hear the words people say, but I can hear the tone, the mood, the changes in volume, etc. Just because part of an ability is missing doesn't mean the whole ability is missing.
-Sara
Heh. I used to watch startrek (TNG) as a kid, on a black and white TV. I always thought the uniforms were blue. I was oddly disturbed when I first saw it on TV and realized that Captain Picard's uniform was *red*. How.. Un-captainly.
-Sara
I'm deaf. You're mistaking "deaf" with "profoundly deaf" or "the total lack of hearing". Even the profoundly deaf can experience a concert through the vibrations in the floors and seats (this obviously won't work for quiet classical music.) but most "deaf" people can hear a range of sounds, and some concerts will be in that range of sounds. They'll hear the sounds as sounds, just as different sounds than the rest of the world. For example, my hearing loss is mostly on lower frequencies--so I'll hear everything at a higher pitch.
However. My eyes/ears have a closer bond than is normal, because I use my eyes to hear people talking, and to anticipate when and where sounds should occur when I can't hear them as well as I should. This results in funny cross-wirings like "hearing" closed captioning (I can never remember closed captioning, I always remember that I "heard" a TV show, even though that's an impossibility. I also "see" sounds. Like I'll be listening to a song, and later I'll remember it as colors and things, rather than as tunes or sounds. And when I take out one of my hearing aids and leave the other one in, I have difficulty seeing out of the eye on the side of the hearing aid I took out. If I take both out, I can see fine. When I take off my glasses, sound gets "quieter"--because part of my perception of sound is "a sound should be there because I'm seeing an action that should result in sound".
-Sara
Err. The "grocery store" part of his comment was "it's okay to NOT get dressed up to go to the grocery store". ;) Read a little more carefully.
;) (5'11 here)
;)
It sounds like all he's saying is that a balance is good, and geek girls tend to find it harder to strike that balance. Making it so that some guys prefer the little ditzy girl who puts on heels and makeup and prances around knowing nothing, and not caring that she knows nothing. Each to his own.
Heh. You should really try bigger heels. Nothing rocks more than being many inches above the crowd.
With me, the biggest problem is getting *away* from the geekiness. I think about geeky things when I'm out. If I'm out with a geek, I tend to talk about geeky things when I'm out. This is sometimes pleasant, and sometimes not. It's why I tend to go for non-geeky guys/girls more often than their counterparts--because sometimes I just want to pretend I'm normal and not play uber-geek. I think a lot of guys feel that way, too. Geek is all fun and games until you want to talk about something not within the geeky realm. (Although, I have an increasingly difficult time talking with non geeks. I'll do things like saying "woot", "borked", etc. or in IM conversations using the != thing. Not to mention babbling happily about my current projects that are full of "huh? what?" words and concepts.)
Besides, geek girls tend to have some issues because they're constantly having either their geekitude or their girliness questioned, therefore they want to prove both. So they'll get all flirty and stuff, and then turn around and start going overboard talking about how geeky they are. Geek guys do the same thing to an extent, but it's more like "Look at what a big brain I have."
It's great that you're a balanced geek girl and all, but some geek guys just don't want geek girls for whatever combination of reasons.
And not every prissy little girl is oblivious to a philips and a torx.
-Sara
Interesting. Mine goes more along the lines of:
1- Buy a bunch of crap.
2- Cut out rebate form and UPC
3- Make copies
4- Fill out little "return receipt required" form at the PO and pay a buck or so more
5- Send in.
6- Wait 2 weeks to a month
7- Recieve check.
8- Let check sit on my desk until it is almost bad, then make a mad rush to the bank to cash it.
If you send them in with proof that they were sent in, the person doing the signing doesn't want to get in trouble, and ensures that it is processed.
And if it's not, you have proof that you sent it. At the very least you could always do a small claims against the company.
Time consuming, though. Generally not worth it for rebates under $50, and even over $50 I do stop and think for a little bit. Last rebate I did was a couple hundred off a huge monitor. Rebate took about two weeks. (Sony)
-Sara
Linux's patches seldom require more than any-to-a-couple minutes downtime, whereas Microsoft's patches can require major downtime, decreased performance, and the chance your system won't boot back up properly after installing. (I've never had issues with Linux in that regard.)
As for disconnecting users. If you're running a mission-critical operation, it's usually assumed you'd have one or more "secondary" servers for load balancing and uptime. In which case you can prevent new connections from being initiated, which will allow the currently connected users to finish their tasks and disconnect normally. New connections would be initiated with the secondary servers. When no one (or very few people) are connected to the primary server, patch and restart (service or computer.) Repeat with the secondaries. Technically you can do this with Microsoft products as well, it just means more downtime and hair-pulling.
Either that, or have a clearly posted downtime on the site handling the downloads. It's common practice even among LARGE companies (think authorize.net, XO, etc.) to have periodic downtimes for upgrades.
With Linux, most patches really don't take all that long, particularly if you're using something like up2date or apt-get.
-Sara
Err. Not quite. One of the benefits of OSS software is that patches are released frequently, thus keeping your system secure is easy. Proprietary software/OSes tend to release patches less frequently, keeping you vulnurable.
The "patches are unnecessary" approach wouldn't keep you very secure, reliable, or stable. Quite the opposite.
(Yes, I realize you're being funny. But the whole Linux is invulnurable" attitude that is growing daily is... Well.. scary.)
-Sara
Err. That's like saying 'I've had apples, oranges, and pears, and pears suck the worst. Sorry." Back it up, for God's sake.
Are you talking about the GUI? And in the case of Linux, which GUI? They all have their pro's and cons, and a lot of what's considered a pro and a con depends on the task you're using it for. ie: XFCE works great for my laptop, but on my better equipped desktop I tend to like KDE or Gnome better because they're more full-featured (think: bloated) I'm not really a big fan of either the Windows or OS X GUIs, either. Look-wise I like KDE. Functionality-wise I like KDE. Stability-wise I like Windows XP.
Or are you talking about the file system... The kernel... The shell? The applications? The installation? The security? The quality of the media you purchase it on? The updates? The licensing?
If you're going to say it sucks, at least say it in a manner that resembles intelligence. Otherwise I'm tempted to just dismiss you as a complete idiot. In fact, I think I might do that anyway. Especially after reading some of your other clueless posts regarding Linux. Particularly about those running Linux on a Mac. "Why do you want to buy a perfectly good computer with OS X on it and ruin it by running Linux?" Like duh. Some of us LIKE Linux, LIKE Mac hardware, but can't stand the eye candy that is OS X.
Your arguements/attitude are so close-minded it's no surprise you don't "get it". "It sucks, just 'cuz I dun like it." Bah.
-Sara