Several years ago, hard drives had a problem called stiction. I understood stiction had been completely cured.
I know of no physical principle which would cause hard drives to stick now. It can be expected that the lubrication will migrate, but that should take decades.
A good cure for stiction was to rotate the drive quickly back and forth around the spindle axis. The inertia would break the spindle free. I've done that successfully.
Difficult individualists like Jobs are never successful taking a number 2 position at a company like Disney. Consider for example Turner at Time Warner.
Consider the man Eisner hired, who didn't last long. I forget his name.
We use Acronis for imaging. We find that trojans attack the operating system, and we need to re-load Windows.
Remember that old images need to be updated eventually. We are making new images now rather than restoring old ones. That also fixes the problems we have been having with an infection at a customer's site.
In general, Windows XP SP2 gives us a lot of very expensive grief. For example, we wasted 1 1/2 days recently when a critical update caused some OS functions to stop operating. This problem was acknowledged by Microsoft, but only after many lost hours. Microsoft could have built the fix into a patch Tuesday adjustment, but decided to let users waste their time instead.
Matt, I can tell you something felt strongly by those of us who work in the field: We're suffering badly. Windows Vista is just Windows XP renamed and extended, which is just Windows 2000 renamed and extended. When Windows XP was released, it was very buggy, and caused many time-consuming problems. Windows XP SP2 is much improved, but we are spending days with extremely serious problems. If you would like one example, see the Windows Update Newsgroup. People are being dragged over the coals by the incredible inability of Microsoft to provide a service that works reliably. We ourselves have spent at least 30 hours in the last 3 months wrestling with Windows Update errors.
If sufficient care is being taken, we are not seeing it.
The sociology of this is more interesting than the programming details, in my opinion. It often happens that one person in the computer industry analyzes an abuse, and another person, who is competing for attention, attacks the first person. Admittedly, Steve Gibson of grc.com has a flawed, exaggerated manner of communicating. But many abuses never are fully recognized because technical people attack each other, rather than analyze carefully how they are being abused.
As others have mentioned in comments I have excerpted below, the U.S. government stated clearly and for the record that it wanted access to all computers. It appears that the government got what it wanted in what I think I can show logically is the only way possible.
Mark Russinovich of SysInternals is an extremely competent programmer. His utilities for Windows are the best available. Even Microsoft recommends using them, to supplement the limited and unfinished and flawed utilities supplied with Windows. However, Mark Russinovich is not a sociologist, so his comments may not take into account the complexities of the social issues.
The main issue seems to be, not that graphics files have the ability to execute code, but why was there inadequate testing in the code to prevent security vulnerabilities?
Here are quotes from Mark's article:
"The actual reason is lost with the original developer of the API, but my guess is that he or she was being as flexible as possible."
And: "... given a choice of believing there was malicious intent or poor design behind this implementation, I'll pick poor design. After all, there are plenty of such examples all throughout the Windows API, especially in the part of the API that has its roots in Windows 3.1. The bottom line is that I'm convinced that this behavior, while intentional, is not a secret backdoor."
Mark's perception of Microsoft's sloppiness seems correct to me. I coded a program for Windows 3.1 using the Windows 3.1 API that dialed to a bulletin board and downloaded stock quotes. I was amazed at the extreme sloppiness and bad design of the Com port API. The actual code that Microsoft shipped had the quality of code that I would expect from an overtired programmer's first draft. A rested programmer would not have been so sloppy, even in his first proof-of-concept code.
Quotes from the comments:
"Thanks for this excellent analysis! Steve Gibson certainly does not deserver to be taken seriously by anyone, but unfortunately he is:-("
This is a reference to the fact that Gibson's language often contains a hysterical, exaggerated quality.
Another comment -- This commenter makes the point that Microsoft had hired a technically knowledgeable top manager, who would certainly demand that programmers check the security of any code that is supplied by a user:
"Q: When was this backdoor coded? A: About 1992. Q: How old was VMS at that time? A: 15 years. Q: Who directed the development of Windows NT? A: Dave Cutler. Q: What's Cutler's background. A: Directed VMS at DEC. Q: On who's watch was this security lapse ported into the Windows NT stream. A: Presumably Cutler's.
While anything's possible, it's hard to imagine how a security lapse of this magnitude (trusting user-written code) could have made its way into VMS code.
"The point is that Stephen Toulouse's "the security landscape in the early 1990's was very different than today" is, well, self-serving. Only in MS's myoptic view is this the case."
Another comment:
"Now that I think about it, even Mark has to guess at what some coder was thinking when she wrote this, and maybe she did it intentionally. You'll never know will you? Maybe somebody's been watching all of us for years, and it ends up in some massive NSA database."
MOD PARENT UP. Whether you agree with it or not, the parent comment is relevant to the discussion of problems with Windows. The difficulty of switching to Linux is what keeps many of us supporting Windows.
Moderators: Don't use moderation as a way of preventing the expression of ideas.
You said that you are a Microsoft employee. Microsoft programmers seem fine to
me. It seems to me that it is Microsoft managers that cause the problems.
I agree with this: "... we [Microsoft] have a big, 20 year
backlog of bugs and design problems,..."
It is believable to me that Microsoft programmers work hard. But they
seem simply have no influence whatsoever in the way Microsoft is managed. I've
sold Microsoft products since April of 1983, and have developed the impression
that Microsoft programmers are not allowed to finish their work before they
are re-assigned elsewhere. Every Microsoft product I can remember was sloppy
when it was first shipped. Then, over a period of years, programmers are
assigned to fix the worst bugs. But the products never reach excellence.
Microsoft products always contain grief for the reseller and grief for the
customer.
You said, "I can tell you i was pissed off when i heard some of the
cuts for Vista. I bet the Vista team was 200x as pissed as i was..."
You seem to be saying what I am saying above. Microsoft programmers
are not managed in such a way that they can possibly deliver a nicely finished
product. Is that correct?
Change in subject: I usually don't like personal web sites, but I
liked yours.
The idea that male computer specialists don't have women friends never
applied to me. People often tell me that they are impressed with my wife, and
they're right to be impressed.
My wife has more patience than I, which means that she is very helpful
when we are trying to find the cause of some degradation in Windows XP. There
is some weird problem with permissions that occurs on a very few machines.
There are serious deficiencies with the Chkdsk utility, which makes it
difficult to troubleshoot problems.
I remember when were having serious problems with Sysprep. It was
buggy. Then Microsoft released a new version. Microsoft documentation is poor,
largely because it is so scattered.
My overall impression of Microsoft is that Microsoft products are
sloppy, and that Microsoft managers are lacking in idealism. I've always had
the impression that Microsoft programmers would prefer to do a good job.
Because Windows 2000 was Microsoft's more serious operating system. Without that, businesses would have been extremely unhappy.
Windows 98 and ME would often self-destruct, in my experience, because the registry would become irreparably corrupted. Windows 98 was an "I'm looking forward to a new OS" operating system.
Do you notice that Microsoft gives its old OS a new name, and people say, "Maybe this time Microsoft will treat me right and release a good product." Microsoft has found a weakness in the average person, the way virus writers find weaknesses in Microsoft software, in my opinion.
Software companies with virtual monopolies don't want to release a good product because then no one will upgrade to a new version, even if it has a new name.
Quote from the Whitedust article linked above: "... should the security of Microsoft's existing users be sidelined...?"
That's always been Microsoft's policy, in my opinion. Microsoft makes more money when Windows is not secure because many people buy new computers when they begin having problems.
The interests of billionaires are almost never the interests of society in general. Billionaires begin to believe that they are superior.
To me, Microsoft's behavior is extremely offensive and abusive. We find we need to re-load Windows XP often because of its vulnerabilities and instability.
Microsoft sells CDs to OEM customers with the service packs applied. To date, the latest CD is Windows XP SP2. That means that there are over 30 megabytes of critical updates that must be downloaded from Windows Update every time we re-load Windows XP. We need CDs with all service packs applied every 6 months, so that we don't have to wait so long.
Microsoft's business strategy may possibly be explained as "maximizing shareholder value". Many people who begin to have trouble simply buy another computer, and Microsoft makes more money,
since Microsoft makes the customer buy the OS again.
It's "Public Relations" from a keyboard manufacturer.
Any honest test would check desktops, too.
And don't put electrically conducting fluids like window cleaner on your keyboard, as the Slashdot editor suggested. Distilled water with a small amount of Dawn dish detergent is okay. Also, electronics must be completely dry before use.
You said, "For some reason the users who experience them can't seem to give
any useful information about what the problems are so they can be fixed."
You are blaming the users!
Firefox developers have been saying this same thing for 2 1/2 years!
Like you, NONE OF THEM have completely read the bug reports, several of which
are linked in this thread.
That's denial.
It's relatively easy to program. The most difficult part of writing
programs is debugging. Finding mistakes requires a true scientist.
Anyone who has read the bug reports would come to the conclusion that
Firefox doesn't have enough resources. Firefox apparently overruns its
resources. For example, if you have a big history file or bookmark file,
Firefox is unstable.
The usage patterns of developers are much different than heavy Firefox
users, who do a lot of research and open many tabs and windows. As you can see
if you read the bug reports, they expect that everyone uses Firefox in the
light way they use it.
Everyone associated with Mozilla and Firefox seem to me to be in a deep state of denial. Why should someone spend hours trying things to make Firefox work? That's not necessary with Opera.
Also, even if I fix the memory problems, there are the CPU hogging and crashes.
Firefox needs to be fixed. Pretending otherwise is a mistake.
Again, Firefox is the most unstable program in common use. In my tests, the problems are the same under Linux. I've seen the same complaints from Mac people, too.
Something sounds as though it needs to be investigated. Generally, three phase power is for industrial uses, in which noise and small fluctuations don't matter.
Certainly all computers must be plugged into a battery backup power supply. The loss of data is far more expensive than the $20-after-rebate cost of a UPS. If Windows XP writes garbage to its registry file, it can be impossible to recover cheaply.
Sometimes PC power supplies don't reset from an error condition until they are unplugged for a minute, or long enough to drain the capacitors. Unplugging and turning the computers on would drain the capacitors quickly, as someone already said.
You imply you are using a power strip, and not a surge protected power strip. The latter is necessary to protect from voltage spikes that can confuse the electronics because they can sometimes be seen as noise on the data lines. You would like to have a small noise filter in your surge protectors, too. A Motorola handbook said that 800 volt spikes can be expected on a 120 volt line about once a month.
It's important to measure the resistance in the ground line. (After the power is off, of course.) Alternatively, you can measure the voltage drop under a load like an incandescent lamp.
As someone already said, when you have weird electrical problems, suspect the ground. Remember that ALL devices and connections on a computer system need to be connected to the same ground. The exception to this is Ethernet network connections, which are very well isolated.
Printers must be connected to the same ground, for example. Check the integrity of the ground; their should be low resistance, as measured with an ohmmeter after you have turned off the power, of course.
Also suspect that there is some weird voltage riding on the power. Is your power clean? The only way to check this is to look at it with an oscilloscope. Oscilloscopes make an instantaneous on-screen graph of the voltage.
All computers should be connected to battery backup power supplies, too of course.
Again, more opinions to add to my parent post above:
Here are some quotes from a Javascript pop-up from the Intel web site
about Intel processors. The Javascript pop-up contains regular links. If you
follow them, it makes a mess of the display of information. Sorry I can't give
you a link, it's a Javascript pop-up.
"Intel(R) processor numbers allow you to quickly differentiate
among processors within a product family and make more informed
decisions."
What that sentence says is exactly the opposite of what it means. What
it means is "You cannot use Intel processor numbers to make informed
decisions."
Here are some sentences under the heading "Guidelines":
"The processor number is not a measurement of performance, nor is it
the only factor to consider when selecting a processor.
"The digits themselves have no inherent meaning, particularly when
looking across processor families. For instance, 840 is not "better" than 640
simply because 8 is greater than 6.
Furthermore, linear increments between processor numbers may not
indicate linear feature advancements."
I understand what led Intel marketing people to get themselves into
this mess. However, they show no evidence that they know they have created a
mess. They've created enormous product confusion, especially in retail ads.
In general, someone who now buys mostly AMD processors should not be
able to go to the Intel web site and find so much wrong in just a few minutes.
The visitor may think, "If there is so much wrong in the first pages I visit,
what ugly revelations lie in other web pages?"
Note that I have still not seen any Intel part numbers. Those are
different from processor numbers, of course. If I want to order Intel
processors from a distributor, the distributor, very reasonably, wants to know
the Intel part number. This is an especially big problem when ordering Intel
motherboards.
Maybe Intel marketing people secretly work for AMD; they certainly
discourage ordering Intel products. A while ago, after several hours of
feeling hassled by stupid statements from Intel marketing people, I decided to
take a longer look at AMD products.
Here are more opinions to add to my parent post above. I just re-visited the
Intel web site. It is now possible to see a side-by-side comparison
chart of Intel processors.
However, the Intel server took exactly 2 minutes 24 seconds to display the chart. It leaves a bad impression when a processor manufacturer has a slow web site. (The obvious joke the visitor may invent while waiting for the Intel server is "Maybe Intel should use AMD processors for their servers?")
Notice the abundant use of Javascript, which is especially inconvenient with tabbed browsers. To see the entire comparison, it was necessary to click inside several
dainty list boxes, most requiring the visitor to scroll the list.
Note that no Intel part numbers are shown on the chart, and there is
no link to them. If you want to call Tech Data and order Intel processors, the
first thing the Tech Data sales representative says is, "What is the Intel
part number?". In the past, at least, and probably now, there were variations
of each processor that had different part numbers. So, if you don't have the
part number, there is no way to know exactly what you are ordering.
Note that the power requirements for each processor are not shown on the chart. This is
an old marketing trick: If there is negative information about the product,
try to prevent your prospective customers from knowing it. Over the long term,
of course, that destroys trust. With multi-billion dollar processor
fabrication plants, Intel must be concerned about the long term. However, out
of touch marketing people typically have no knowledge of technical things, and
don't want any, and are not concerned about the health of their companies,
maybe because they believe that could get jobs elsewhere.
I see that most of Intel's product line is still called Pentium.
My impression of Intel is "intelligent people performing badly". That kind of problem needs to be resolved at the top. Intel needs, in my opinion, a socially sophisticated CEO.
When I talk to Intel people, I get the impression that Intel is out of
control. The most scary thing I have ever experienced is not horror films, but
marketing departments like Intel's and Microsoft's that have so many people
who are completely out of touch with the needs of their companies. They live
in a weird disconnected world in which they fabricate fantasies about their
own significance. I've met and talked with homeless people more in touch with
reality than Intel or Microsoft marketing people.
For example, on July 17, 2005 I got a message from Intel with the
subject "Get an Intel(R) BunnyPeople(TM) Character when you Pass Three ICC
Online Tests". Apparently someone at Intel thinks that I am immature
enough to be motivated by a doll! Maybe there are people that immature, but
I'll bet there are few immature people who have purchasing authority.
On the other hand, I have found it impossible to get Intel to do
anything right. The Intel people who aren't involved with the design of
microprocessors have one "skill" in abundance: They have highly developed
methods of avoiding work. I don't have time now to tell the stories about
that. Here's only one:
The Intel part number for Intel products was, at that time and
probably now, not available anywhere on the public web site. So, if someone
wanted to go to Fry's and be sure what they were getting, they would have no
way of knowing what part number they wanted.
At that time, there was a way to link Intel product names with Intel
part numbers. It was necessary to get a secret password to a non-public Intel
web site. I told several Intel marketing people how stupid that was. I got the
standard stupid Intel marketing rationalizations about how they didn't need to
do the work, or someone else was already doing it. (Which was not true.)
The significance of dropping the Pentium name has nothing to do with
the word Pentium. Intel marketing people are adopting ways of naming their
microprocessors that provide no information whatsoever about what a
prospective customer would be getting. Presumably that makes sense in the
fantasy world in which they live. Sneaky behavior is considered smart in the
fake world of Intel marketing; they believe they are so superior that they can
play games and their customers won't notice.
I forget right now who is CEO of Intel, but the Intel board of
directors should fire him. He has no clue about how to build a sense of
community.
Slashdot Mirror
Several years ago, hard drives had a problem called stiction. I understood stiction had been completely cured.
I know of no physical principle which would cause hard drives to stick now. It can be expected that the lubrication will migrate, but that should take decades.
A good cure for stiction was to rotate the drive quickly back and forth around the spindle axis. The inertia would break the spindle free. I've done that successfully.
"Disk which aren't used are almost as likely to fail as those that are used all the time due to problems with the lubricant."
Do you have a link to research that shows that is correct?
Eisner is gone now. In the early years, I understand he was okay, although I usually don't like Disney entertainment.
Robert A. Iger is the CEO now.
Isn't the internet wonderful? Someone might doubt what I say, but not when I link to the company web site.
Difficult individualists like Jobs are never successful taking a number 2 position at a company like Disney. Consider for example Turner at Time Warner.
Consider the man Eisner hired, who didn't last long. I forget his name.
We use Acronis for imaging. We find that trojans attack the operating system, and we need to re-load Windows.
Remember that old images need to be updated eventually. We are making new images now rather than restoring old ones. That also fixes the problems we have been having with an infection at a customer's site.
In general, Windows XP SP2 gives us a lot of very expensive grief. For example, we wasted 1 1/2 days recently when a critical update caused some OS functions to stop operating. This problem was acknowledged by Microsoft, but only after many lost hours. Microsoft could have built the fix into a patch Tuesday adjustment, but decided to let users waste their time instead.
Here is more development of my ideas of what I consider to be enforced sloppiness by Microsoft management: Why no check of user code? Sociology.
Matt, I can tell you something felt strongly by those of us who work in the field: We're suffering badly. Windows Vista is just Windows XP renamed and extended, which is just Windows 2000 renamed and extended. When Windows XP was released, it was very buggy, and caused many time-consuming problems. Windows XP SP2 is much improved, but we are spending days with extremely serious problems. If you would like one example, see the Windows Update Newsgroup. People are being dragged over the coals by the incredible inability of Microsoft to provide a service that works reliably. We ourselves have spent at least 30 hours in the last 3 months wrestling with Windows Update errors.
If sufficient care is being taken, we are not seeing it.
The sociology of this is more interesting than the programming details, in my opinion. It often happens that one person in the computer industry analyzes an abuse, and another person, who is competing for attention, attacks the first person. Admittedly, Steve Gibson of grc.com has a flawed, exaggerated manner of communicating. But many abuses never are fully recognized because technical people attack each other, rather than analyze carefully how they are being abused.
:-("
As others have mentioned in comments I have excerpted below, the U.S. government stated clearly and for the record that it wanted access to all computers. It appears that the government got what it wanted in what I think I can show logically is the only way possible.
Mark Russinovich of SysInternals is an extremely competent programmer. His utilities for Windows are the best available. Even Microsoft recommends using them, to supplement the limited and unfinished and flawed utilities supplied with Windows. However, Mark Russinovich is not a sociologist, so his comments may not take into account the complexities of the social issues.
The main issue seems to be, not that graphics files have the ability to execute code, but why was there inadequate testing in the code to prevent security vulnerabilities?
Here are quotes from Mark's article:
"The actual reason is lost with the original developer of the API, but my guess is that he or she was being as flexible as possible."
And: "... given a choice of believing there was malicious intent or poor design behind this implementation, I'll pick poor design. After all, there are plenty of such examples all throughout the Windows API, especially in the part of the API that has its roots in Windows 3.1. The bottom line is that I'm convinced that this behavior, while intentional, is not a secret backdoor."
Mark's perception of Microsoft's sloppiness seems correct to me. I coded a program for Windows 3.1 using the Windows 3.1 API that dialed to a bulletin board and downloaded stock quotes. I was amazed at the extreme sloppiness and bad design of the Com port API. The actual code that Microsoft shipped had the quality of code that I would expect from an overtired programmer's first draft. A rested programmer would not have been so sloppy, even in his first proof-of-concept code.
Quotes from the comments:
"Thanks for this excellent analysis! Steve Gibson certainly does not deserver to be taken seriously by anyone, but unfortunately he is
This is a reference to the fact that Gibson's language often contains a hysterical, exaggerated quality.
Another comment -- This commenter makes the point that Microsoft had hired a technically knowledgeable top manager, who would certainly demand that programmers check the security of any code that is supplied by a user:
"Q: When was this backdoor coded?
A: About 1992.
Q: How old was VMS at that time?
A: 15 years.
Q: Who directed the development of Windows NT?
A: Dave Cutler.
Q: What's Cutler's background.
A: Directed VMS at DEC.
Q: On who's watch was this security lapse ported into the Windows NT stream.
A: Presumably Cutler's.
While anything's possible, it's hard to imagine how a security lapse of this magnitude (trusting user-written code) could have made its way into VMS code.
"The point is that Stephen Toulouse's "the security landscape in the early 1990's was very different than today" is, well, self-serving. Only in MS's myoptic view is this the case."
Another comment:
"Now that I think about it, even Mark has to guess at what some coder was thinking when she wrote this, and maybe she did it intentionally. You'll never know will you? Maybe somebody's been watching all of us for years, and it ends up in some massive NSA database."
An
MOD PARENT UP. Whether you agree with it or not, the parent comment is relevant to the discussion of problems with Windows. The difficulty of switching to Linux is what keeps many of us supporting Windows.
Moderators: Don't use moderation as a way of preventing the expression of ideas.
You said that you are a Microsoft employee. Microsoft programmers seem fine to me. It seems to me that it is Microsoft managers that cause the problems.
..."
I agree with this: "... we [Microsoft] have a big, 20 year backlog of bugs and design problems,
It is believable to me that Microsoft programmers work hard. But they seem simply have no influence whatsoever in the way Microsoft is managed. I've sold Microsoft products since April of 1983, and have developed the impression that Microsoft programmers are not allowed to finish their work before they are re-assigned elsewhere. Every Microsoft product I can remember was sloppy when it was first shipped. Then, over a period of years, programmers are assigned to fix the worst bugs. But the products never reach excellence. Microsoft products always contain grief for the reseller and grief for the customer.
You said, "I can tell you i was pissed off when i heard some of the cuts for Vista. I bet the Vista team was 200x as pissed as i was..."
You seem to be saying what I am saying above. Microsoft programmers are not managed in such a way that they can possibly deliver a nicely finished product. Is that correct?
Change in subject: I usually don't like personal web sites, but I liked yours.
Slashdot people! Here's a technical man with a wife who seems wonderful.
The idea that male computer specialists don't have women friends never applied to me. People often tell me that they are impressed with my wife, and they're right to be impressed.
My wife has more patience than I, which means that she is very helpful when we are trying to find the cause of some degradation in Windows XP. There is some weird problem with permissions that occurs on a very few machines. There are serious deficiencies with the Chkdsk utility, which makes it difficult to troubleshoot problems.
I remember when were having serious problems with Sysprep. It was buggy. Then Microsoft released a new version. Microsoft documentation is poor, largely because it is so scattered.
My overall impression of Microsoft is that Microsoft products are sloppy, and that Microsoft managers are lacking in idealism. I've always had the impression that Microsoft programmers would prefer to do a good job.
Because Windows 2000 was Microsoft's more serious operating system. Without that, businesses would have been extremely unhappy.
Windows 98 and ME would often self-destruct, in my experience, because the registry would become irreparably corrupted. Windows 98 was an "I'm looking forward to a new OS" operating system.
Do you notice that Microsoft gives its old OS a new name, and people say, "Maybe this time Microsoft will treat me right and release a good product." Microsoft has found a weakness in the average person, the way virus writers find weaknesses in Microsoft software, in my opinion.
Software companies with virtual monopolies don't want to release a good product because then no one will upgrade to a new version, even if it has a new name.
Quote from the Whitedust article linked above: "... should the security of Microsoft's existing users be sidelined ...?"
That's always been Microsoft's policy, in my opinion. Microsoft makes more money when Windows is not secure because many people buy new computers when they begin having problems.
The interests of billionaires are almost never the interests of society in general. Billionaires begin to believe that they are superior.
To me, Microsoft's behavior is extremely offensive and abusive. We find we need to re-load Windows XP often because of its vulnerabilities and instability.
Microsoft sells CDs to OEM customers with the service packs applied. To date, the latest CD is Windows XP SP2. That means that there are over 30 megabytes of critical updates that must be downloaded from Windows Update every time we re-load Windows XP. We need CDs with all service packs applied every 6 months, so that we don't have to wait so long.
Microsoft's business strategy may possibly be explained as "maximizing shareholder value". Many people who begin to have trouble simply buy another computer, and Microsoft makes more money, since Microsoft makes the customer buy the OS again.
It's "Public Relations" from a keyboard manufacturer.
Any honest test would check desktops, too.
And don't put electrically conducting fluids like window cleaner on your keyboard, as the Slashdot editor suggested. Distilled water with a small amount of Dawn dish detergent is okay. Also, electronics must be completely dry before use.
You said, "For some reason the users who experience them can't seem to give any useful information about what the problems are so they can be fixed."
You are blaming the users!
Firefox developers have been saying this same thing for 2 1/2 years! Like you, NONE OF THEM have completely read the bug reports, several of which are linked in this thread.
That's denial.
It's relatively easy to program. The most difficult part of writing programs is debugging. Finding mistakes requires a true scientist.
Anyone who has read the bug reports would come to the conclusion that Firefox doesn't have enough resources. Firefox apparently overruns its resources. For example, if you have a big history file or bookmark file, Firefox is unstable.
The usage patterns of developers are much different than heavy Firefox users, who do a lot of research and open many tabs and windows. As you can see if you read the bug reports, they expect that everyone uses Firefox in the light way they use it.
Somehow Opera has none of these problems.
To help put the story in perspective, New Zealand's population is 4 million, 0.067% of the population of the world.
Australia's population is 20 million, 0.33% of the population of the world.
Everyone associated with Mozilla and Firefox seem to me to be in a deep state of denial. Why should someone spend hours trying things to make Firefox work? That's not necessary with Opera.
Also, even if I fix the memory problems, there are the CPU hogging and crashes.
Firefox needs to be fixed. Pretending otherwise is a mistake.
Again, Firefox is the most unstable program in common use. In my tests, the problems are the same under Linux. I've seen the same complaints from Mac people, too.
Google shows 173,000 hits on Firefox "memory leak".
There's also very, very serious CPU hogging.
Firefox is the most unstable program commonly used with Windows.
Something sounds as though it needs to be investigated. Generally, three phase power is for industrial uses, in which noise and small fluctuations don't matter.
Certainly all computers must be plugged into a battery backup power supply. The loss of data is far more expensive than the $20-after-rebate cost of a UPS. If Windows XP writes garbage to its registry file, it can be impossible to recover cheaply.
Sometimes PC power supplies don't reset from an error condition until they are unplugged for a minute, or long enough to drain the capacitors. Unplugging and turning the computers on would drain the capacitors quickly, as someone already said.
You imply you are using a power strip, and not a surge protected power strip. The latter is necessary to protect from voltage spikes that can confuse the electronics because they can sometimes be seen as noise on the data lines. You would like to have a small noise filter in your surge protectors, too. A Motorola handbook said that 800 volt spikes can be expected on a 120 volt line about once a month.
It's important to measure the resistance in the ground line. (After the power is off, of course.) Alternatively, you can measure the voltage drop under a load like an incandescent lamp.
As someone already said, when you have weird electrical problems, suspect the ground. Remember that ALL devices and connections on a computer system need to be connected to the same ground. The exception to this is Ethernet network connections, which are very well isolated.
Printers must be connected to the same ground, for example. Check the integrity of the ground; their should be low resistance, as measured with an ohmmeter after you have turned off the power, of course.
Also suspect that there is some weird voltage riding on the power. Is your power clean? The only way to check this is to look at it with an oscilloscope. Oscilloscopes make an instantaneous on-screen graph of the voltage.
All computers should be connected to battery backup power supplies, too of course.
Another thing wrong with the story is that they didn't post a link to the CD: Anonym.OS LiveCD.
That's the first time I've ever known a Slashdot editor to be sloppy.
Again, more opinions to add to my parent post above:
Here are some quotes from a Javascript pop-up from the Intel web site about Intel processors. The Javascript pop-up contains regular links. If you follow them, it makes a mess of the display of information. Sorry I can't give you a link, it's a Javascript pop-up.
"Intel(R) processor numbers allow you to quickly differentiate among processors within a product family and make more informed decisions."
What that sentence says is exactly the opposite of what it means. What it means is "You cannot use Intel processor numbers to make informed decisions."
Here are some sentences under the heading "Guidelines":
"The processor number is not a measurement of performance, nor is it the only factor to consider when selecting a processor.
"The digits themselves have no inherent meaning, particularly when looking across processor families. For instance, 840 is not "better" than 640 simply because 8 is greater than 6.
Furthermore, linear increments between processor numbers may not indicate linear feature advancements."
I understand what led Intel marketing people to get themselves into this mess. However, they show no evidence that they know they have created a mess. They've created enormous product confusion, especially in retail ads.
In general, someone who now buys mostly AMD processors should not be able to go to the Intel web site and find so much wrong in just a few minutes. The visitor may think, "If there is so much wrong in the first pages I visit, what ugly revelations lie in other web pages?"
Note that I have still not seen any Intel part numbers. Those are different from processor numbers, of course. If I want to order Intel processors from a distributor, the distributor, very reasonably, wants to know the Intel part number. This is an especially big problem when ordering Intel motherboards.
Maybe Intel marketing people secretly work for AMD; they certainly discourage ordering Intel products. A while ago, after several hours of feeling hassled by stupid statements from Intel marketing people, I decided to take a longer look at AMD products.
Here are more opinions to add to my parent post above. I just re-visited the Intel web site. It is now possible to see a side-by-side comparison chart of Intel processors.
However, the Intel server took exactly 2 minutes 24 seconds to display the chart. It leaves a bad impression when a processor manufacturer has a slow web site. (The obvious joke the visitor may invent while waiting for the Intel server is "Maybe Intel should use AMD processors for their servers?")
Notice the abundant use of Javascript, which is especially inconvenient with tabbed browsers. To see the entire comparison, it was necessary to click inside several dainty list boxes, most requiring the visitor to scroll the list.
Note that no Intel part numbers are shown on the chart, and there is no link to them. If you want to call Tech Data and order Intel processors, the first thing the Tech Data sales representative says is, "What is the Intel part number?". In the past, at least, and probably now, there were variations of each processor that had different part numbers. So, if you don't have the part number, there is no way to know exactly what you are ordering.
Note that the power requirements for each processor are not shown on the chart. This is an old marketing trick: If there is negative information about the product, try to prevent your prospective customers from knowing it. Over the long term, of course, that destroys trust. With multi-billion dollar processor fabrication plants, Intel must be concerned about the long term. However, out of touch marketing people typically have no knowledge of technical things, and don't want any, and are not concerned about the health of their companies, maybe because they believe that could get jobs elsewhere.
I see that most of Intel's product line is still called Pentium.
My impression of Intel is "intelligent people performing badly". That kind of problem needs to be resolved at the top. Intel needs, in my opinion, a socially sophisticated CEO.
When I talk to Intel people, I get the impression that Intel is out of control. The most scary thing I have ever experienced is not horror films, but marketing departments like Intel's and Microsoft's that have so many people who are completely out of touch with the needs of their companies. They live in a weird disconnected world in which they fabricate fantasies about their own significance. I've met and talked with homeless people more in touch with reality than Intel or Microsoft marketing people.
For example, on July 17, 2005 I got a message from Intel with the subject "Get an Intel(R) BunnyPeople(TM) Character when you Pass Three ICC Online Tests". Apparently someone at Intel thinks that I am immature enough to be motivated by a doll! Maybe there are people that immature, but I'll bet there are few immature people who have purchasing authority.
On the other hand, I have found it impossible to get Intel to do anything right. The Intel people who aren't involved with the design of microprocessors have one "skill" in abundance: They have highly developed methods of avoiding work. I don't have time now to tell the stories about that. Here's only one:
The Intel part number for Intel products was, at that time and probably now, not available anywhere on the public web site. So, if someone wanted to go to Fry's and be sure what they were getting, they would have no way of knowing what part number they wanted.
At that time, there was a way to link Intel product names with Intel part numbers. It was necessary to get a secret password to a non-public Intel web site. I told several Intel marketing people how stupid that was. I got the standard stupid Intel marketing rationalizations about how they didn't need to do the work, or someone else was already doing it. (Which was not true.)
The significance of dropping the Pentium name has nothing to do with the word Pentium. Intel marketing people are adopting ways of naming their microprocessors that provide no information whatsoever about what a prospective customer would be getting. Presumably that makes sense in the fantasy world in which they live. Sneaky behavior is considered smart in the fake world of Intel marketing; they believe they are so superior that they can play games and their customers won't notice.
I forget right now who is CEO of Intel, but the Intel board of directors should fire him. He has no clue about how to build a sense of community.