What about a company that has 300 users 450 computers and only one fulltime IT guy who primarily does sys-admin related tasks (email, viruses, backup, troubleshooting, etc.). By association, he's the "security" guy as well. He does all of the computer inventory & tracking, ordering & provisionsing, repairing, programming... does he have to be the "Security Officer" too?
"This is an interesting point - we have had, in essence, the same UI experience since Windows 3.x, GeoWindows, and the original Apple user interfaces - it's all, at this point - increased productivity features and eye candy."
This is true in the western world... Americans tend to forget that there are billions of people in the world who aren't familiar with western culture, business, capitalism and modern business ideas (all of which make sense to western computer users). Go to Africa and show them a modern OS desktop. They won't understand the concept of folders and files regardles of how pretty they look... how does a GUI designer make a general purpose UI that all cultures can use and comprehend? I think that's what Jef is getting at.
I live with two other people in a 2 bedroom 1 bath condo and we use (on average) 1000 KWH per month during the summer and 2500 KWH per month during the winter (all electric heat).
Right on... Mac users are promiscuous. They share files, click any url that comes their way, install shareware, etc. Kinda like gays when AIDS showed up... their behavior will have to change or they're gonna have sick Macs... Unix isn't all good, there's some bad there too.
A lack of features is a very common complaint about MySQL. There is a reason for this. Initially, MySQL concentrated on speed, not features. Other DBs such as Postgresql concentrated on features. Today, you see the two ideas coming together... MySQL is adding features (as you have found from reading the book) while Postgresql is getting faster. They started at different points, but that matters not in the end.
It's a combination of 'hippy' and 'liberal'. I made it up myself. Here's the definition:
Hiperal - "A person of either gender who does not shave, hugs trees and believes capitalism in general is a bad thing and that terrorists are freedom fighters."
If they're gonna put a bright red target on their back (full page ad in NYT, then they'd better do this right... I can see it now: full page ad bragging about how secure firefox is and then some hacker or malware group figures out how to hijack or hack firefox... MS would pounce on this.
I saw this coming a while back. Besides kinda buring out I had the desire to earn some "passive" income. So, I sold the big house, bought a couple of small rental houses (one of which I live in) and started getting other people to pay me rent each month. It's nice to go to bed at night knowing that someone is working to pay me rent;)
I still work FT too, but when the bottom falls out or I decide I've had enough, I'll be ready for it.
Because Slashdot isn't a part of the real world. It's a collection of tech fanatics who don't understand business at all. Here's what Intel would do if Windows (like MS is really going to spend R&D dollars on this... I've got some ocean front property in Idaho for sale exclusievly for Slashdotters) came out for PPC (IBM) procs: yawn and roll over before going back to sleep.
I use Python to administer computers... lots and lots of computers. It runs on Macs, Windows, Linux and all variants of Unix. It's one of the most portable languages around.
I used to be a huge Linux buff (and still am when it comes to servers), but intelligent tools like Python make using Windows XP Home a much more fruitful and fun experience as I can actually get stuff done programmatically. Go Python developers and keep up the good work!!!
A right mouse button is an evil idea thought up by Bill Gates to confuse Mac users. It causes them to go into an infinite loop... which button to push, right or left?
"Dude... this PC has two buttons on the mouse and a wheel in the middle... what am I supposed to do?"
30 minutes later: "Fuck it Dude, PCs are too complex."
Someone please explain how LDAP is different from an SQL database. Just the other day, a friend of mine was telling me how his LDAP server uses an index to speed up searches and I said, 'Ah Hah!!!... it's just like a database." But he said the two differ a lot, but didn't go into the details... how do they differ?
Any company that purposefully builds a Web browser (IE) into an OS (Windows) as deeply as possible and as quickly as possible in an attempt to win a court case is asking for trouble. Any software engineer with an IQ above 70 knows that this is a bad idea. The sad part about this is that people who use Windows/IE/Outlook pay the price. How many IE vulnerabilities are in the wild? Hundreds.
In short, MS tossed sound engineeing principles out the window and placed legal and marketing concerns ahead of everything else. They deserver the shitty security reputation they have. They built it themselves... purposefully to win a court case (period).
My uni uses it in most of the CS classes for projects and homework. I use it for these tasks and some LDAP work as well, and I like it OK, but I'm a bit confused by who controls it and defines it. Seems to be a great language w/o a great community behind it and I've never quite understood that.
If Java were more like Pyhton or Perl (great OO languages with great communities and clear ideas of who is behind them and where they're heading) I think Java could rule the enterprise world and the open source fanatic world, but I disgress.
IMO, sys-admin script writing in Perl, Pyton or whatever is similar to black-hat hacking. Scripts are written that report current IP addy, software installed, uptime, MAC addy, etc. How is this different from getting info from spam bots or DDOS zombies?
Some of our scripts have come in handy for stolen laptops. The laptops phone home when the user logs on reporting MAC addy, IP, GW, SNM, etc... we call the cops who in turn call the ISP who then provide an address and bam, the thief is caught. Knowing a bit how to think like a black-hat hacker can be benificial!!!
Learn Python. It works on Linux & Windows as well as Macs (if you have any). It's the best cross-platform scripting language out there and it makes automating common sys-admin tasks easy. We use it for generating reports and monitoring Lin & Win systems.
All this talk about keeping "company data secure"... better disable those network cards too so employees can't upload a "secret" company file or send an email that has a *gasp* file attachment. Besides, one can do the same exact thing with a floppy as they can with a USB drive... just on a smaller scale.
Just yesterady, I got an email from a local sys admin about Win Server 2003. He said it wouldn't boot so he couldn't install it. To make a long story short, he was trying to boot the server with the MS Office 2003 CD (the office suite, not the OS).Later that same day, the same sys admin sent another email about needing to reboot the exchange server to "clear up" a problem.
The moral of this story is that *most* sys admins are not capable of installing or using Linux (or any other OS) unless it's dumbed-down to the childish level of the current Windows OSes.
XP home users (all 50 - 60 million of them) are not in a domain nor can they be. And by default, the OS creates users who have full admin rights on the machine. It's like giving a 5 year-old a loaded gun and telling him to go outside and play... something bad is going to happen.
Change the following registry value to 4 and the new "Windows Security Center" will stop working upon reboot... it runs as a service that any admin user can kill. Did I mention that by default all XP users are admin;)
Also, here's a Python script that will automatically kill the new "Windows Firewall" in to XP Service Pack 2. You can bet your ass that hackers are already tampering with this. Click a URL and bam... the firewall goes down.
This is just two example of what MS does to "secure" their systems. God help us all.
I don't understand how switching to another license (BSD, Mozilla, etc.) would protect the kernel from patent infringement suits.
I do see how it would make it more "commercial" friendly, but IMO, that's all it would do. If it were licensed under BSD, then companies such as MS, Apple, etc. could take the kernel, use it, change it or whatever w/o showing the changes... just like Apple has done with much of the FreeBSD code.
I'm not complaining. The fact of the matter is that 90% of WinXP users run as administrators. By allowing *any* software to tamper with the firewall, MS has made a mistake. All a virus will have to do is trick a user into clicking a link on a web page or something and the fw will go down. This isn't possible with zone alram or sygate firewalls... nor should it be.
Slashdot Mirror
What about a company that has 300 users 450 computers and only one fulltime IT guy who primarily does sys-admin related tasks (email, viruses, backup, troubleshooting, etc.). By association, he's the "security" guy as well. He does all of the computer inventory & tracking, ordering & provisionsing, repairing, programming... does he have to be the "Security Officer" too?
When Linus talks, zealots listen.
"This is an interesting point - we have had, in essence, the same UI experience since Windows 3.x, GeoWindows, and the original Apple user interfaces - it's all, at this point - increased productivity features and eye candy."
This is true in the western world... Americans tend to forget that there are billions of people in the world who aren't familiar with western culture, business, capitalism and modern business ideas (all of which make sense to western computer users). Go to Africa and show them a modern OS desktop. They won't understand the concept of folders and files regardles of how pretty they look... how does a GUI designer make a general purpose UI that all cultures can use and comprehend? I think that's what Jef is getting at.
I live with two other people in a 2 bedroom 1 bath condo and we use (on average) 1000 KWH per month during the summer and 2500 KWH per month during the winter (all electric heat).
Right on... Mac users are promiscuous. They share files, click any url that comes their way, install shareware, etc. Kinda like gays when AIDS showed up... their behavior will have to change or they're gonna have sick Macs... Unix isn't all good, there's some bad there too.
A lack of features is a very common complaint about MySQL. There is a reason for this. Initially, MySQL concentrated on speed, not features. Other DBs such as Postgresql concentrated on features. Today, you see the two ideas coming together... MySQL is adding features (as you have found from reading the book) while Postgresql is getting faster. They started at different points, but that matters not in the end.
Wrong word, use hiperal 'HIP - er - al'
It's a combination of 'hippy' and 'liberal'. I made it up myself. Here's the definition:
Hiperal - "A person of either gender who does not shave, hugs trees and believes capitalism in general is a bad thing and that terrorists are freedom fighters."
If they're gonna put a bright red target on their back (full page ad in NYT, then they'd better do this right... I can see it now: full page ad bragging about how secure firefox is and then some hacker or malware group figures out how to hijack or hack firefox... MS would pounce on this.
Moral: Do it right!!!
I saw this coming a while back. Besides kinda buring out I had the desire to earn some "passive" income. So, I sold the big house, bought a couple of small rental houses (one of which I live in) and started getting other people to pay me rent each month. It's nice to go to bed at night knowing that someone is working to pay me rent ;)
I still work FT too, but when the bottom falls out or I decide I've had enough, I'll be ready for it.
Why would anyone think this would happen?
Because Slashdot isn't a part of the real world. It's a collection of tech fanatics who don't understand business at all. Here's what Intel would do if Windows (like MS is really going to spend R&D dollars on this... I've got some ocean front property in Idaho for sale exclusievly for Slashdotters) came out for PPC (IBM) procs: yawn and roll over before going back to sleep.
I use Python to administer computers... lots and lots of computers. It runs on Macs, Windows, Linux and all variants of Unix. It's one of the most portable languages around.
I used to be a huge Linux buff (and still am when it comes to servers), but intelligent tools like Python make using Windows XP Home a much more fruitful and fun experience as I can actually get stuff done programmatically. Go Python developers and keep up the good work!!!
A right mouse button is an evil idea thought up by Bill Gates to confuse Mac users. It causes them to go into an infinite loop... which button to push, right or left?
"Dude... this PC has two buttons on the mouse and a wheel in the middle... what am I supposed to do?"
30 minutes later: "Fuck it Dude, PCs are too complex."
.
Someone please explain how LDAP is different from an SQL database. Just the other day, a friend of mine was telling me how his LDAP server uses an index to speed up searches and I said, 'Ah Hah!!!... it's just like a database." But he said the two differ a lot, but didn't go into the details... how do they differ?
Any company that purposefully builds a Web browser (IE) into an OS (Windows) as deeply as possible and as quickly as possible in an attempt to win a court case is asking for trouble. Any software engineer with an IQ above 70 knows that this is a bad idea. The sad part about this is that people who use Windows/IE/Outlook pay the price. How many IE vulnerabilities are in the wild? Hundreds.
In short, MS tossed sound engineeing principles out the window and placed legal and marketing concerns ahead of everything else. They deserver the shitty security reputation they have. They built it themselves... purposefully to win a court case (period).
My uni uses it in most of the CS classes for projects and homework. I use it for these tasks and some LDAP work as well, and I like it OK, but I'm a bit confused by who controls it and defines it. Seems to be a great language w/o a great community behind it and I've never quite understood that.
If Java were more like Pyhton or Perl (great OO languages with great communities and clear ideas of who is behind them and where they're heading) I think Java could rule the enterprise world and the open source fanatic world, but I disgress.
IMO, sys-admin script writing in Perl, Pyton or whatever is similar to black-hat hacking. Scripts are written that report current IP addy, software installed, uptime, MAC addy, etc. How is this different from getting info from spam bots or DDOS zombies? Some of our scripts have come in handy for stolen laptops. The laptops phone home when the user logs on reporting MAC addy, IP, GW, SNM, etc... we call the cops who in turn call the ISP who then provide an address and bam, the thief is caught. Knowing a bit how to think like a black-hat hacker can be benificial!!!
You forgot "AOL"... many people think that's the Internet.
Learn Python. It works on Linux & Windows as well as Macs (if you have any). It's the best cross-platform scripting language out there and it makes automating common sys-admin tasks easy. We use it for generating reports and monitoring Lin & Win systems.
All this talk about keeping "company data secure"... better disable those network cards too so employees can't upload a "secret" company file or send an email that has a *gasp* file attachment. Besides, one can do the same exact thing with a floppy as they can with a USB drive... just on a smaller scale.
Just yesterady, I got an email from a local sys admin about Win Server 2003. He said it wouldn't boot so he couldn't install it. To make a long story short, he was trying to boot the server with the MS Office 2003 CD (the office suite, not the OS).Later that same day, the same sys admin sent another email about needing to reboot the exchange server to "clear up" a problem.
The moral of this story is that *most* sys admins are not capable of installing or using Linux (or any other OS) unless it's dumbed-down to the childish level of the current Windows OSes.
XP home users (all 50 - 60 million of them) are not in a domain nor can they be. And by default, the OS creates users who have full admin rights on the machine. It's like giving a 5 year-old a loaded gun and telling him to go outside and play... something bad is going to happen.
Change the following registry value to 4 and the new "Windows Security Center" will stop working upon reboot... it runs as a service that any admin user can kill. Did I mention that by default all XP users are admin ;)
w scsvc\Start
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\
Also, here's a Python script that will automatically kill the new "Windows Firewall" in to XP Service Pack 2. You can bet your ass that hackers are already tampering with this. Click a URL and bam... the firewall goes down.
This is just two example of what MS does to "secure" their systems. God help us all.
I don't understand how switching to another license (BSD, Mozilla, etc.) would protect the kernel from patent infringement suits.
I do see how it would make it more "commercial" friendly, but IMO, that's all it would do. If it were licensed under BSD, then companies such as MS, Apple, etc. could take the kernel, use it, change it or whatever w/o showing the changes... just like Apple has done with much of the FreeBSD code.
I'm not complaining. The fact of the matter is that 90% of WinXP users run as administrators. By allowing *any* software to tamper with the firewall, MS has made a mistake. All a virus will have to do is trick a user into clicking a link on a web page or something and the fw will go down. This isn't possible with zone alram or sygate firewalls... nor should it be.
MS says it's a feature... I think it's a bug: programmatically disable windows firewall