Re:Recommended for new *nix users?
on
The Birth of vi
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Didn't include anything but vi on the install media?
Pretty much - I think vi is the only available editor on Solaris, AIX & HP-UX base CDs. There are "additional software" CDs, I think, but I haven't looked at those for a while.
As for the off-chance you may end up on an unknown system...
Welcome to the hell of "service take-on" when you buy a company and absorb their IT systems. You are in a maze of different OS builds, all different and all governed by change control, so you have a 3 day lead time (if you're lucky...) to install any software, let alone some GNU freeware downloaded from the net.
Or you've just joined the company and they use the base OS and none of your namby-pamby extra software!
I have yet to see a system build where vi wasn't installed or was removed.
Anyone who needs a warning label to tell them not to go into a washing machine and turn it on deserves to be removed from the gene pool for gross stupidity. People need to learn common sense and they'll be able to deal with life better than if they rely on warning labels all the time.
"Jeez, Cletus, look at this here warning label - 'do not iron clothes whilst being worn'. Just as well that was there or I'd have gone done that..."
Re:Recommended for new *nix users?
on
The Birth of vi
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
vi is worth knowing at least the basics of, simply because it's installed by default on 99% of Unix & linux systems. The only other editor you can pretty much guarantee to be installed is ed, which is even less user-friendly than vi.
While emacs, pico etc are installed on most linux systems, you won't find them on Solaris, AIX or HP-UX.
For an end user, they probably shouldn't worry too much as they'll have kedit or something in the GUI, but *nix admins should know vi.
The legacy of how vi was written is pretty much evident in the terse commands it uses - commands are short, to the point but an absolute bitch to figure out without some reference. However, the short commands are still useful in today's gigabit ethernet world with Gigahertz CPUs - the short commands are quicker to type and for plain text, I'm much faster with vi than any other text editor around.
Just to be pedantic, ISO isn't the filesystem, it's either ISO9660 (CD-ROM) or UDF (DVD).
However, you're correct that both are ubiquitous standards and likely to be readable by all modern operating systems and should be for some time to come.
Well, there was the time I managed to cause a security incident...
At an old workplace, there was a server (ok, a Sun Ultra 1, but it was running Oracle) which no-one seemed to know where it was, but it was on the network, running OK. I resolved to track it down...
First plan was to have it write something on the screen asking whoever saw it to call me. No joy; guess no-one went there.
Then I figured that it had a sound card & speaker - I also knew it would play.au files natively so went a searching and found a line from Monty Python's Holy Grail: specifically, "Help, Help! I'm being repressed". I then set up a cron job to cat this file to/dev/audio every 15 minutes. Unfortunately, all someone could hear was "help, help" from outside the comms room it was in and assumed someone was trapped inside. Security guard looks around and eventually finds the server with my name on the monitor.
At least we found out where the damn thing was, which was useful when some numpty builder cut the ethernet cable while working in the room.
Frankly, anything which allows a web site to run code unsolicited on your PC - that's enough to delete all your files, start up a program to capture keystrokes etc. Sure, it (probably) won't be able to install a rootkit, but it can inject back doors into your startup scripts (.bashrc or whatever) and generally be a pain.
You don't have to get root to be a security flaw...
(Sun) is actually still supporting users of version 2.6.... the operating system is fully supported through 2007
Not according to Sun's own website where support ended in July. We've actually called up Sun and they refused the call because 2.6 was out of support.
That said, 2.6 is a pretty old release and we're overdue doing an upgrade on it, but it's inaccurate to say Sun still support it. Added to that, there are a number of Sun Alerts which come out and say that older versions aren't being evaluated for certain bugs.
Hrm, LED error codes - I once had an exam for a job and one of the IBM questions was "what does the LED code mean?". For those who haven't worked with IBM hardware, their Unix servers have an LED panel (used to be 3 digit LED, it's been expanded on later hardware). These guys expected me to know what an LED code stood for - the error was "Corrupt custom entry in the ODM database" - how many people know what the hell that is, let alone what LED code it is????
Sounds like someone should figure out that cost of test/dev system (cost of downtime because you couldn't test) * (probability of downtime). If, on the other hand, the cost of downtime is less than the dev system, that needs to be highlighted as a potential risk. If the company can't figure that out, they deserve everything they get.
People can't even do basic mental arithmetic these days; I can still add numbers (certainly up to 3 or 4 digits; any more and I can end up having to remember too many digits at once if there's a lot of carrying over) in my head which seems to be a lost art. I hated learning the multiplication tables, but I'm glad of it as I can churn numbers in my head without having to reach for the calculator.
That said, I work in a company which still runs a lot of COBOL code - a bank, funnily enough. I think banks are about the only people still using code written in the 70s *sigh*
I suspect not - ATX cases and the ilk can withstand a standard layout including a lot of dead space - laptops are much more closely packed and a component being 5mm bigger wouldn't fit in the right slot. During the time I've been working with computers, I've never seen much more than drives & memory being available to fit into laptops.
Touchscreen voting isn't a bad idea in itself - computerised voting where the entire voting trail is in volatile computer storage is a bad idea as it's trivial to forge.
There's multiple ways to get it "right" - these include paper "receipts" that the voter can check & put in a ballot box (available for recount) or optical scanned ballot papers printed by the computer, but ultimately, it gives a physical check in the voter's hands to confirm that they are voting for who they believe they are voting for.
Microsoft have been touting the "more secure" and "more stable" line for about 10 years, much as washing powder manufacturers would tout "New Ariel, washes even whiter".
In short, Windows NT was buggy, unstable and full of security holes. Which we all knew at the time, even if MS didn't admit it. Unfortunately, people don't question them on this and say "so, if this is more secure, runs things twice as fast and doesn't crash, what is this pile of shit you've been selling us for the last few years? Mmm???"
Agreed - I took one look and saw a timewarp back 10 years.... some of the monstrosities from people who discovered animated gifs and the blink tag *shudder*
I think I only used the blink tag once, to fake up a C: prompt with a flashing cursor for some help pages.
The whole point is that a decent laser printer takes in postscript and does all the hard work itself (you can even get a postscript mandelbrot in a few lines). A cheap-ass printer will expect some obscure POS format which takes ages for the driver to format, hammering your CPU while it has to generate it.
Laser rocks - I've been impressed with my LJ1300 which is still on its original cartridge after 2 years (I don't print much).
It's not a method to protect copyright it's to protect patents - the two are both intellectual property but subject to different laws. DMCA protects copyrighted materials (hence the "C") rather than patented materials.
As for patent law, I guess HP are claiming that their method of making ink (i.e. by mixing certain chemicals in a certain way, or certain treatment processes) are sufficiently "advanced" they warrant protection. Specific rants about how screwed up patent law is can be left out at this point...
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Or you've just joined the company and they use the base OS and none of your namby-pamby extra software!
I have yet to see a system build where vi wasn't installed or was removed.
"Jeez, Cletus, look at this here warning label - 'do not iron clothes whilst being worn'. Just as well that was there or I'd have gone done that..."
While emacs, pico etc are installed on most linux systems, you won't find them on Solaris, AIX or HP-UX.
For an end user, they probably shouldn't worry too much as they'll have kedit or something in the GUI, but *nix admins should know vi.
The legacy of how vi was written is pretty much evident in the terse commands it uses - commands are short, to the point but an absolute bitch to figure out without some reference. However, the short commands are still useful in today's gigabit ethernet world with Gigahertz CPUs - the short commands are quicker to type and for plain text, I'm much faster with vi than any other text editor around.
However, you're correct that both are ubiquitous standards and likely to be readable by all modern operating systems and should be for some time to come.
At an old workplace, there was a server (ok, a Sun Ultra 1, but it was running Oracle) which no-one seemed to know where it was, but it was on the network, running OK. I resolved to track it down...
First plan was to have it write something on the screen asking whoever saw it to call me. No joy; guess no-one went there.
Then I figured that it had a sound card & speaker - I also knew it would play .au files natively so went a searching and found a line from Monty Python's Holy Grail: specifically, "Help, Help! I'm being repressed". I then set up a cron job to cat this file to /dev/audio every 15 minutes. Unfortunately, all someone could hear was "help, help" from outside the comms room it was in and assumed someone was trapped inside. Security guard looks around and eventually finds the server with my name on the monitor.
At least we found out where the damn thing was, which was useful when some numpty builder cut the ethernet cable while working in the room.
You don't have to get root to be a security flaw...
I personally wouldn't trust a server with a single hard drive - it's asking for trouble...
That said, 2.6 is a pretty old release and we're overdue doing an upgrade on it, but it's inaccurate to say Sun still support it. Added to that, there are a number of Sun Alerts which come out and say that older versions aren't being evaluated for certain bugs.
Hrm, LED error codes - I once had an exam for a job and one of the IBM questions was "what does the LED code mean?". For those who haven't worked with IBM hardware, their Unix servers have an LED panel (used to be 3 digit LED, it's been expanded on later hardware). These guys expected me to know what an LED code stood for - the error was "Corrupt custom entry in the ODM database" - how many people know what the hell that is, let alone what LED code it is????
- Shut down the database and back up the datafiles (cold backup)
- Put the database in hot backup mode & back up the datafiles + archive logs
- Take a database export (not 100% guaranteed but generally good enough)
Don't know what your options in SQL server are, but I can't say I've found Oracle backups difficult...Read page 2 of the article - it explains how Skype can bypass this, at least in some cases.
Sounds like someone should figure out that cost of test/dev system (cost of downtime because you couldn't test) * (probability of downtime). If, on the other hand, the cost of downtime is less than the dev system, that needs to be highlighted as a potential risk. If the company can't figure that out, they deserve everything they get.
People can't even do basic mental arithmetic these days; I can still add numbers (certainly up to 3 or 4 digits; any more and I can end up having to remember too many digits at once if there's a lot of carrying over) in my head which seems to be a lost art. I hated learning the multiplication tables, but I'm glad of it as I can churn numbers in my head without having to reach for the calculator.
That said, I work in a company which still runs a lot of COBOL code - a bank, funnily enough. I think banks are about the only people still using code written in the 70s *sigh*
I suspect not - ATX cases and the ilk can withstand a standard layout including a lot of dead space - laptops are much more closely packed and a component being 5mm bigger wouldn't fit in the right slot. During the time I've been working with computers, I've never seen much more than drives & memory being available to fit into laptops.
There's multiple ways to get it "right" - these include paper "receipts" that the voter can check & put in a ballot box (available for recount) or optical scanned ballot papers printed by the computer, but ultimately, it gives a physical check in the voter's hands to confirm that they are voting for who they believe they are voting for.
Works pretty well, there's even a method of unlocking if you forget/lose the password to get into the box.
In short, Windows NT was buggy, unstable and full of security holes. Which we all knew at the time, even if MS didn't admit it. Unfortunately, people don't question them on this and say "so, if this is more secure, runs things twice as fast and doesn't crash, what is this pile of shit you've been selling us for the last few years? Mmm???"
Reason: The Websense category "Tasteless" is filtered.
I think I only used the blink tag once, to fake up a C: prompt with a flashing cursor for some help pages.
Bizarrely, it's not the worst page I've ever seen on the internet...
Laser rocks - I've been impressed with my LJ1300 which is still on its original cartridge after 2 years (I don't print much).
As for patent law, I guess HP are claiming that their method of making ink (i.e. by mixing certain chemicals in a certain way, or certain treatment processes) are sufficiently "advanced" they warrant protection. Specific rants about how screwed up patent law is can be left out at this point...
Urm, isn't that contempt of court if the judge orders you to answer a question and you don't?