Correctly installed, a user should not even have execute permission on his home directory. I can't think of any reason why an ordinary user should be able to download and execute anything. Our machines are configured with read/write/search ACL on the default home directories (My Documents, and the hidden ones); Only programs has execute permissions and desktop users can write in that directory. But I agree, there are some ill-formed programs that require too many privs to run.
Is this a feature or a bug? As a system administrator, I don't want my users mucking with power setting. I say that power settings should be an administrative function. Windows XP is really designed for the corporate environment (where they have a nearly 100% share) and can be locked down very tightly. Windows XP includes very fine-grained access controls and excellent auditing features, none of which are available in OS X.
FYI... USB is serial (what do you think the S stands for?). Firewire and SATA as well as gigabit ethernet are also serial. Nutt'n wrong with serial, I think you mean low baud-rate RS232.
What does a company known for making expensive computers know about portable music players?
Re:One thing the editor left off..
on
Apple Updates iPod
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
I'm not sure I would define a product that doesn't come with a keyboard, mouse or screen as "complete". Perhaps if all you want to do is admire your $449 white brick, the mac mini is complete.
If you look at the stats from netcraft netcraft they've put enough bandwidth and servers to be able to handle the demand. It's possible to do it with advanced planning and money. Unlike some other popular fruit OS vendors whose software update chokes under load.
Why don't they just unplug their machines from the internet? Put it on a firewalled segment, or lock down the machines tightly so they can only run the 2 or 3 apps that they need on them. The other programs can be run an second machine. Windows XP has excellent ACL on NTFS. Too bad that not enough users/sys admins learn to use them.
Do the "relatives" you refer to in your post have admin rights? In successful corporate roll-outs no user should need (or have) admin rights, or even write permission to most directories. Stop bashing WXP without learning how to use the built in tools.
By the way, how do I turn on access auditing on my Mac OS X? How do I keep a user for deleting a file while still allowing them to create a new file in the directory? Oh wait, there's no permission bit for delete. Love it, or hate it, the permission and auditing features in NTFS leave OS X back in the dark ages.
It's sad when a formerly great company like HP has been reduced to re-badging other company's products. Even if you think the iPod is cool, HP could have done better than just sticking its name on another company's product. What happened to innovation?
I wonder what company she'll grace with her presence next? Dump that stock quickly...
You might look into the Sonos system (previously discussed on/. It's wireless and allows unique content at each location. I saw an early demo and it was very impressive. Cost might be a factor, but the system and controllers have a very nice look and feel.
Two comments about corporate use of Microsoft Office... first of all for large corporations Microsoft office is relatively cheap on quantity purchases. Secondly, if you are a company that does business with a large firm that has standardized on MS office (like consultants, ad agency, lawyers, engineers, architects) and need to be 100% compatible with your clients then you have no choice but to go with office. The first time you send an "almost" compatible file that they can't read you've raised a red flag. We have a client that insists on using Outlook attachments (which can only be detached by Outlook) so we're force to use Outlook to keep this client happy. For us, the cost of software is relatively minor compared to client satisfaction.
It's interesting with all the M$ bashing about bundled, that when the Macintosh includes a basket of (not bad) software it's considered a good thing. Microsoft basically includes the same package of software that's bundled with the Mac: photo editor, video/audio player, movie maker, word processor (either word pad or cheap version of Word), chat client, etc. In many cases, some may feel, that these aren't as good as the Mac version but it's the same bundle that the Mac fans point to as one of the advantages of the Mac.
Photoshop lost the low end to programs like Paintshop pro. Not a bad program (not as good as Photoshop) and useful for 75% of the users. At about $100 it captured the low-end forcing Adobe to offer a cheaper version of Photoshop (not as powerful as Paintshop) to try to get some of the market.
In many markets there is an opportunity for consumer/tester/light user products and pro one for heavy duty use. My photo editing tasks are too minor to afford the cost to buy, and the effort to learn Photoshop, so Paintshop meets my needs. If Photoshop was the same price as Paintshop I'd probably go with it.
It depends on how you define the market...for $200 plus hard disk devices it's probably closer to 95%, for portable music devices (including CD players, classic walkmans) it's probably closer to 5%. Also are you counting units or dollars? I still see many more classic CD (+MP3 disk) players and even tape players than iPods. Not everyone can afford (or wants to) drop $300 on a new toy...especially when they know that a cheaper version will be coming out in a few months (or years).
It's not clear whether it will be the ipod or some other device but the outcome is pretty certain. In the future portable music devices (and home ones too) will only play authorized DRM music. There will be some format upgrade that has enough value for many consumers to buy new players and music...and surprise it will be DRM'd. There will always be decrypters, but most people will not care. The ipod is the closest thing out there it a "closed" system--one store, almost forced software upgrades (if you want to use the store).
Actually, I was comparing the Axim (approx US$400) to the T5 (also approx us$400). After looking at the T|E I decided that it wasn't acceptable for my needs and was willing to pay more...although there is no excuse for the cripled USB, as it works correctly on the Zire line. In the end I compared machines that were within 10% of the same price.
--Also, the specs on the T|E only say that it has a USB port, it's very burried in the fine print that it doesn't function correctly with add-on devices.
I was a big fan of the Palm and really didn't want to go the Pocket PC route. I purchased a Tungsten E and was disappointed with it. The biggest problem was that you couldn't connect a GPS to its nonfunctioning USB port and no built-in bluetooth. I looked at upgrading to the Tugsten T5 and was disappointed at no built-in wifi and a rather high price. The Dell Axim v50x came out about the same time. Built-in bluetooth, wifi, choice of SD and CF. In the vga model (v50x) it's available for just over $400. Surprising decent software and nice design. Too bad it runs pocketPC but it's really not such a bad choice. The palm seems to have lost their edge and it's hard to recommend them any more.
The darkside is taking over...and damn it with a better product.
My story is similar. I purchased the Palm E and was pretty disappointed with it--it has a lame USB port so it can't talk to other devices like a GPS. Almost at the same time, the T5 was released--I was already to buy it when I realized that it didn't have WiFi and cost close to $400 (and wasn't shipping until December). Just then, Dell released the X50 -- built-in WiFI & BlueTooth, SD & CF. The X50v has a higher resolution screen than the T5 and I think is faster. The Dell Axim X50v is being discounted to just over $400--about the same price as the T5. The comparison isn't even close.
I was a long-time Palm fan, but they just didn't keep up.
Ken
Corning fluidics (from about 1972)
on
Fluid Logic Chips
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Many years ago (about 1972), Corning and others made "fluidics" devices that used air to implement simple nand gates. They were looking for applications, such as explosive environments (fireworks factories, cotton processing) that relays wouldn't work well in. The devices had simple sensors and could implement logic by combining nand gates. There were a couple of competitors that made fluidic devices. The Corning were small black cans about 2" high and 1/2 around; the air supply was connected on the top and there were 4-inputs and one output on the bottom.
Cute, but they went no where. I put together a neat high school science fair project with them and got to the county level.
Apple aggressively and routinely drops support (including high profile security and bug fixes) of older releases. Within a year or two (or less) of an Apple dot release support, support and bug fix are no longer available.
Get with the program. XP really is a better OS than earlier Microsoft attempts (with perhaps the exception of W2K). Consumers would complain less about crashes and incompatibilities (and security holes) if they were running XP Home on their PCs. (And as a side benefit, reformatting and re-installing everything would get rid of the spy ware, virus and other stuff on their hard drive. (OK, the virus and spy ware would be back soon...).
The commenter didn't indicate whether he (or she) was a sport or commercial fisher. If they are a sport fisher, the pilings from the turbines should improve the fishing--and the at 1/3 to 1/2 mile apart the turbines shouldn't interfere with navigation.
The only commercial fishing in the waters of Horseshoe Shoal is draggers which do significant environmental damage.
And finally, taking fish from "public lands" is just like loggers cutting down public forests. Did you pay to take those fish out of public waters? Did you do any environmental reviews before putting the boat in the water? The fish and waters are also public goods. If you caught any fish (the waters have been severally overfished), they are likely to have been on the watch or protected lists. How much oil and gas did the boat dump into the water? CO2, NOx into the air? What was the environmental impact of the chemicals used to paint the bottom? Fishing (sport and commercial) has a huge impact on the public lands too, Perhaps we should require environmental impact reviews on sport and commercial fishing.
Actually... the real problem is the political conservatives. Look at the board of Save Our Sound... Doug Yearly: former head of Phelps Dodge Corporation, one of the worst polluting companies and Jack Egan (formerly of EMC) one of W's good buds. It's really very wealthy shoreline property owners who are opposed. The rest is just a smoke screen (or should that be hot air).
For more info on the Cape Wind plans see www.capewind.org
The proposed area for the turbines is very shallow...there is almost no boat traffic in the area around the turbines... and if necessary the CG could rescue by an inflatable or other light craft. The CG had no safety objections to the plan. For more info on the Cape Wind plans see www.capewind.org
Funny how Apple can't (or will not) make its software work on earlier releases of the Mac. There is still a significant percentage of Mac users that haven't upgraded--because of the cost (of the OS and applications), training requirements, hardware or application availablity. Talk about incompatibility...
Funny how the pictures never show the machine plugged in... Looks great, just don't try to use it. At least they didn't do the usual trick of a power brick the size of a house... Some of the earlier macs had huge power bricks.
Slashdot Mirror
Correctly installed, a user should not even have execute permission on his home directory. I can't think of any reason why an ordinary user should be able to download and execute anything. Our machines are configured with read/write/search ACL on the default home directories (My Documents, and the hidden ones); Only programs has execute permissions and desktop users can write in that directory. But I agree, there are some ill-formed programs that require too many privs to run.
I think the desk accessories were introduced in Mac OS 5 (maybe before). There was a calculator and some other nifty apps. Back to the future.
Is this a feature or a bug? As a system administrator, I don't want my users mucking with power setting. I say that power settings should be an administrative function. Windows XP is really designed for the corporate environment (where they have a nearly 100% share) and can be locked down very tightly. Windows XP includes very fine-grained access controls and excellent auditing features, none of which are available in OS X.
FYI... USB is serial (what do you think the S stands for?). Firewire and SATA as well as gigabit ethernet are also serial. Nutt'n wrong with serial, I think you mean low baud-rate RS232.
What does a company known for making expensive computers know about portable music players?
I'm not sure I would define a product that doesn't come with a keyboard, mouse or screen as "complete". Perhaps if all you want to do is admire your $449 white brick, the mac mini is complete.
If you look at the stats from netcraft netcraft they've put enough bandwidth and servers to be able to handle the demand. It's possible to do it with advanced planning and money. Unlike some other popular fruit OS vendors whose software update chokes under load.
Why don't they just unplug their machines from the internet? Put it on a firewalled segment, or lock down the machines tightly so they can only run the 2 or 3 apps that they need on them. The other programs can be run an second machine. Windows XP has excellent ACL on NTFS. Too bad that not enough users/sys admins learn to use them.
Do the "relatives" you refer to in your post have admin rights? In successful corporate roll-outs no user should need (or have) admin rights, or even write permission to most directories. Stop bashing WXP without learning how to use the built in tools.
By the way, how do I turn on access auditing on my Mac OS X? How do I keep a user for deleting a file while still allowing them to create a new file in the directory? Oh wait, there's no permission bit for delete. Love it, or hate it, the permission and auditing features in NTFS leave OS X back in the dark ages.
It's sad when a formerly great company like HP has been reduced to re-badging other company's products. Even if you think the iPod is cool, HP could have done better than just sticking its name on another company's product. What happened to innovation?
I wonder what company she'll grace with her presence next? Dump that stock quickly...
You might look into the Sonos system (previously discussed on /. It's wireless and allows unique content at each location. I saw an early demo and it was very impressive. Cost might be a factor, but the system and controllers have a very nice look and feel.
Two comments about corporate use of Microsoft Office... first of all for large corporations Microsoft office is relatively cheap on quantity purchases. Secondly, if you are a company that does business with a large firm that has standardized on MS office (like consultants, ad agency, lawyers, engineers, architects) and need to be 100% compatible with your clients then you have no choice but to go with office. The first time you send an "almost" compatible file that they can't read you've raised a red flag. We have a client that insists on using Outlook attachments (which can only be detached by Outlook) so we're force to use Outlook to keep this client happy. For us, the cost of software is relatively minor compared to client satisfaction.
It's interesting with all the M$ bashing about bundled, that when the Macintosh includes a basket of (not bad) software it's considered a good thing. Microsoft basically includes the same package of software that's bundled with the Mac: photo editor, video/audio player, movie maker, word processor (either word pad or cheap version of Word), chat client, etc. In many cases, some may feel, that these aren't as good as the Mac version but it's the same bundle that the Mac fans point to as one of the advantages of the Mac.
You can't have it both ways (or maybe you can).
Photoshop lost the low end to programs like Paintshop pro. Not a bad program (not as good as Photoshop) and useful for 75% of the users. At about $100 it captured the low-end forcing Adobe to offer a cheaper version of Photoshop (not as powerful as Paintshop) to try to get some of the market.
In many markets there is an opportunity for consumer/tester/light user products and pro one for heavy duty use. My photo editing tasks are too minor to afford the cost to buy, and the effort to learn Photoshop, so Paintshop meets my needs. If Photoshop was the same price as Paintshop I'd probably go with it.
It depends on how you define the market...for $200 plus hard disk devices it's probably closer to 95%, for portable music devices (including CD players, classic walkmans) it's probably closer to 5%. Also are you counting units or dollars? I still see many more classic CD (+MP3 disk) players and even tape players than iPods. Not everyone can afford (or wants to) drop $300 on a new toy...especially when they know that a cheaper version will be coming out in a few months (or years).
It's not clear whether it will be the ipod or some other device but the outcome is pretty certain. In the future portable music devices (and home ones too) will only play authorized DRM music. There will be some format upgrade that has enough value for many consumers to buy new players and music...and surprise it will be DRM'd. There will always be decrypters, but most people will not care. The ipod is the closest thing out there it a "closed" system--one store, almost forced software upgrades (if you want to use the store).
Actually, I was comparing the Axim (approx US$400) to the T5 (also approx us$400). After looking at the T|E I decided that it wasn't acceptable for my needs and was willing to pay more...although there is no excuse for the cripled USB, as it works correctly on the Zire line. In the end I compared machines that were within 10% of the same price. --Also, the specs on the T|E only say that it has a USB port, it's very burried in the fine print that it doesn't function correctly with add-on devices.
I was a big fan of the Palm and really didn't want to go the Pocket PC route. I purchased a Tungsten E and was disappointed with it. The biggest problem was that you couldn't connect a GPS to its nonfunctioning USB port and no built-in bluetooth. I looked at upgrading to the Tugsten T5 and was disappointed at no built-in wifi and a rather high price. The Dell Axim v50x came out about the same time. Built-in bluetooth, wifi, choice of SD and CF. In the vga model (v50x) it's available for just over $400. Surprising decent software and nice design. Too bad it runs pocketPC but it's really not such a bad choice. The palm seems to have lost their edge and it's hard to recommend them any more. The darkside is taking over...and damn it with a better product.
My story is similar. I purchased the Palm E and was pretty disappointed with it--it has a lame USB port so it can't talk to other devices like a GPS. Almost at the same time, the T5 was released--I was already to buy it when I realized that it didn't have WiFi and cost close to $400 (and wasn't shipping until December). Just then, Dell released the X50 -- built-in WiFI & BlueTooth, SD & CF. The X50v has a higher resolution screen than the T5 and I think is faster. The Dell Axim X50v is being discounted to just over $400--about the same price as the T5. The comparison isn't even close. I was a long-time Palm fan, but they just didn't keep up. Ken
Many years ago (about 1972), Corning and others made "fluidics" devices that used air to implement simple nand gates. They were looking for applications, such as explosive environments (fireworks factories, cotton processing) that relays wouldn't work well in. The devices had simple sensors and could implement logic by combining nand gates. There were a couple of competitors that made fluidic devices. The Corning were small black cans about 2" high and 1/2 around; the air supply was connected on the top and there were 4-inputs and one output on the bottom.
Cute, but they went no where. I put together a neat high school science fair project with them and got to the county level.
Nice to see the concept recycled.
Apple aggressively and routinely drops support (including high profile security and bug fixes) of older releases. Within a year or two (or less) of an Apple dot release support, support and bug fix are no longer available.
Get with the program. XP really is a better OS than earlier Microsoft attempts (with perhaps the exception of W2K). Consumers would complain less about crashes and incompatibilities (and security holes) if they were running XP Home on their PCs. (And as a side benefit, reformatting and re-installing everything would get rid of the spy ware, virus and other stuff on their hard drive. (OK, the virus and spy ware would be back soon...).
The commenter didn't indicate whether he (or she) was a sport or commercial fisher. If they are a sport fisher, the pilings from the turbines should improve the fishing--and the at 1/3 to 1/2 mile apart the turbines shouldn't interfere with navigation.
The only commercial fishing in the waters of Horseshoe Shoal is draggers which do significant environmental damage.
And finally, taking fish from "public lands" is just like loggers cutting down public forests. Did you pay to take those fish out of public waters? Did you do any environmental reviews before putting the boat in the water? The fish and waters are also public goods. If you caught any fish (the waters have been severally overfished), they are likely to have been on the watch or protected lists. How much oil and gas did the boat dump into the water? CO2, NOx into the air? What was the environmental impact of the chemicals used to paint the bottom? Fishing (sport and commercial) has a huge impact on the public lands too, Perhaps we should require environmental impact reviews on sport and commercial fishing.
Actually... the real problem is the political conservatives. Look at the board of Save Our Sound... Doug Yearly: former head of Phelps Dodge Corporation, one of the worst polluting companies and Jack Egan (formerly of EMC) one of W's good buds. It's really very wealthy shoreline property owners who are opposed. The rest is just a smoke screen (or should that be hot air). For more info on the Cape Wind plans see www.capewind.org
The proposed area for the turbines is very shallow...there is almost no boat traffic in the area around the turbines... and if necessary the CG could rescue by an inflatable or other light craft. The CG had no safety objections to the plan. For more info on the Cape Wind plans see www.capewind.org
Funny how Apple can't (or will not) make its software work on earlier releases of the Mac. There is still a significant percentage of Mac users that haven't upgraded--because of the cost (of the OS and applications), training requirements, hardware or application availablity. Talk about incompatibility...
Funny how the pictures never show the machine plugged in... Looks great, just don't try to use it. At least they didn't do the usual trick of a power brick the size of a house... Some of the earlier macs had huge power bricks.