Question is... are there any restrictions on what the "security experts" can report? Is this a way to legally limit what they are allowed to say... in exchange for preview copies they sign a nondisclosure agreement to only report the issues to Apple? It seems that if Apple was really serious about security they would allow the experts (and others) to have access to the source code.
For mail, just have multiple MX records. Web hosting, ftp, etc is harder... but for most small businesses mail is really most important. We use a cheap Linksys RV016 to handle load balancing and failover. It's not perfect... but will happily handle up to 8 redundant ISP connections and automatically disable and re-route a failed one. It also handles load balancing... There are a couple of quirks with the unit... but for $300 it's a good deal.
As for outgoing mail, we use static IP from comcast and haven't had any problems with mail be rejected or port 25 being blocked. You'll pay a couple $ more for comcast business and the static IP... but they will gladly sell you a block of 8 or 32 for a few bucks. Also make sure you get a reverse DNS pointing to your domain.
It's not a terrible idea, and in the grand scheme of things not that expensive either. Probably less than a couple minutes advertising or a:30 on the Superbowl..... Reasonable chance that the stunt got picked up by mainstream media, and it did make it into/. and The Register.
Short of bright sunny and 80F (which is unlikely in February in the Northeast), warm air (> 30 F) and fog is most effective at melting snow. The fog acts as a reasonable thermal conductor accelerating the snow melt. Surprising, rain is lousy at melting snow and just creates a mess. Cold and bright sun does melt some snow--especially if it's been plowed and is on blacktop (aka asphalt or bituminous concrete). Overtime, the snow also compresses so it appears to be melting.
Has anyone noticed what actions MC has taken to deal with the DDOS? It looks like they've done almost nothing--they are still trying to serve the same content and haven't moved their DNS servers off network. They did reduce the TTL on the DNS records to 15 minutes, but I'm not sure how that helps?
I would think that the inability to get to the DNS records would be blocking all the email traffic into MC (I couldn't see their MX records), which would bounce all the mail.
I would have thought that they had a backup plan to handle this kind of event--perhaps serving static web pages, backup DNS and a standby CDN contract to handle the traffic. It also seems odd that the DNS servers are on their network, but I'm sure that they have multiple carriers and centers.
It's surprising that a major IT-dependent firm isn't better able to handle this. On the other hand, as it's been pointed out, the website isn't used for the financial traffic.
What should they be doing to handle this kind of attack?
I think, at least with Outlook, the default is to not load images and the warning message is reasonably clear. Also, knowing that you received a message doesn't seem like that big of a deal. If you're concerned about confirming your email address (which is all the web beacons do) use a throw away address or turn off downloads
I assume that almost everyone who sends commercial email does this. It's not really news, and I don't think it's a big deal. Almost every email program (even Outlook) has an option to not download images--if you don't want to confirm that you've received the email, don't download images.
Also, as an occasional sender of commercial email just because the image has been downloaded doesn't mean it's been read. Just means the images have been downloaded.
This is why if you are sending out commercial email, make sure the key messages are visible without the images being downloaded. Tell your reader enough to make them want to a) read the rest, b) confirm that was read and c) download images.
I think they are only blocking CDN, not simple web pages. If netflix detects that it would be blocked (based on the user's) ISP they could redirect to a simple web page hosted on nearly any (or multiple) networks. I guess really deep packet inspection could block all netflix content, but the argument about "conserving" bandwidth would be harder.
Dell is very segmented by market--consumer, small business, enterprise, healthcare, education and government. Although very similar products are sold in each market, the component quality, crapware, support and service varies. In the enterprise and up you can order custom images with your software preloaded, the support will be all domestic and a very high quality. The components used are better and machines seem better built. We've pretty much standardized on the bottom of the Precision workstation line (T1500) for our standard desktop and have been statisfied with build quality and support. For i7's not the cheapest machine made, but the convenience of quality and support outweighs the slightly higher initial cost.
The nearly same machine is sold for small businesses and consumers with slightly cheaper parts, foreign support and a "boatload" of crapware.
Like many purchases, you sometime get what you pay for. For Joe or Jane consumer, I'm not sure I'd recommend this strategy, but if you value your time there is a real value to a higher initial cost and a lower lifetime expense. (Known as lower TCO, which is marketing speak for expensive.)
How much are you actually paying for those Windows licenses? Are you spending more than $100 per employee? It's pretty hard to come up with a meaningful savings if all you can show is eliminating $33 per employee per year (assuming that the license has a 3 year life span, probably more since you skipped Vista). On new machines, prices out the savings of not buying Windows...maybe $50? You can show $33 per employee savings by autosetting B&W printing, switching your printer maintenance company, or turning off the monitor at the end of the day... or skipping a couple of lunches for the IT department. The desktop savings just aren't very powerful. And Open Office is close to word, but not identical. I'm guessing that your sales department want the decks to look perfect... not just be readable in Word.
There might be others in your organization who do "real work", that don't ever need to access a linux box. Marketing, finance, and even those "low lifes" who sell your product to customers. I suspect that over your firm's entire environment, relatively few need (or even know of) linux kernals. I thing you need to get out of the cube more often.
I have to say that you'll going to have a lot of resistance and create ill feelings by eliminating Outlook and Exchange. It's hard to see that you will get a huge amount of savings, and will probably irritate some of the people (or person) who signs your paycheck. Even you save a few bucks, no one will remember that when your access to gmail is down or some exec's blackberry doesn't synch right. I'd recommend being very careful and getting the senior execs sign-out off.
Also, it would be helpful if you described your "company" is some detail so the slashdot advice isn't (as) random.
Math is important for understanding statistics, probablity and financial literacy. It's also important for understanding queues; A good foundation in mathematics should include probability, basic statistics, some finance (interest rates, compound growth, mark-up, mark-down, ROI), fractions, percentages and a bit of symbolic arithmetic (aka, high school algebra). Understanding sets (union, intersection) doesn't hurt. The population would be less easily bamboozled if they had a basic grasp of math. And, yes I think numeracy is important for most white collar (and many blue collar) jobs. Most jobs in the 21st century are going to require high school math or better.
It seems to me that most code targets a very small number of platforms--if you're developing for the desktop/laptop business market, then you need to target the PC. If the product is the desktop/laptop consumer market, then target the Mac and the PC. If you're targeting the embedded processor market, you probably have a pretty good idea of the hardware and software that it will run on. I guess the only currently fragmented market is the mobile phone market, wehre there is still no clear winner on the hardware, software and OS.
If there is a new processor/hardware... java will not just run on it... someone will have to port the VM.
On the desktop, Java is just annoying. Every few weeks the damn updater asks about a download. Between updating Java and Flash you can pretty much keep busy.
There are a number of languages and lots of compilers that are not community supported. C# and F# languages and most of the C++ languages are not community supported. There are profit-making (or ones who hope so) companies that pay programmes to develop and support the languages. Customers pay to buy the compilers---although some of the tools may be sold at a loss to support the ecosystem.
Oracle can maintain the Java language and the tools without the OSS community. As for the rest of the open source projects that (the failing) Sun supported, unclear how they make any money.
If the real purpose in purchasing Sun was to get the hardware and hardware design talent then letting the various OSS projects taht Sun dabbled in die is a good idea. Rather than killing the projects directly, which would create bad press and feelings.... Oracle is just letting them quetly die. Why does Oracle care if competitive OSS projects like mySQL, open office or community Java live? This is really a very clever strategy on Oracle's part. They got the core of Sun and can quietly kill the various projects that they don't need or want.
Hard to see how Open Office can possibly make any money for Oracle. Does anyone pay for support on Open Office? (duck) Does anyone even use it?
Actually the real issue that property insurance companies are concerned about is rising ocean levels. If you look at a map, much of the insured property is fairly close to a coast. Rising water levels will increase the frequency and severity of damage from floods and wind-driven water. Some insurance companies have stopped writing insurance in flood-prone areas and it's even going to get worse.
So yes, global warming is a real concern to insurance companies--as they are used to looking out many years on the risk premiums.
(FYI, unless specifically purchased, most property insurance does not cover flood damage, but only damage from wind-driven water.)
I also thought that a turbine/electric car -- like the Chevy Volt--would be an ideal combo. The electric motor would power the wheels and the batteries would normally be charged by plugging in. However, if the batteries got low on the road the turbine would power up at full speed to charge the batteries and then shutdown. This would solve the probelm of turbines only being efficient at one speed. The turbine would run at it's design RPM while the batteries charge, and the turbine could be rated for optimal battery charging.
I'm guessing that cost is the problem, that there aren't any cheap turbine. Although http://waoline.com/detente/hobby/HobbyTurbines.htm sell model airplane turbunes, but I'm guessing they have terrible fuel economy.
We've switched about half our users to 2007/2010 (mostly with the purchase of a new machine), and after initial hesitation most users became quite positive about the new interface. After 2 weeks or so, they all reported it was easier to use and commands were more obvious. We do minor customization of the quick access tool bar to put some very common-to-us commands up there.
However, I have to say that 2010 is much better than 2007 (it just seems easier to use). I also wish they had added more functions to excel in addition to more colors, rows and columns. Excel really needs a built-in regex (not via macro) and a find last function.
The cost of MS Office are relatively small... For a mid-size or larger company the cost of an MS Office license is about $120 or so (depends on volume and license specifics, with the purchase of a new compnter it's nearly free). Assuming that a company rebuys a license every 2 to 3 years (for upgrades) the cost per year is about $50/employee per year. Assuming that the employee is paid $35K per year, Office cost about 0.14% of their wages. (A lower percentage for higher paid employees of course). You don't need to show much of a productivity improvement to justify the MS Office investment. A day of "conversion" training will cost $175 (35,000/200 working days). That pretty much blows the cost savings.
The office chair that the employee is sitting in costs more than 2 copies of Office, yet I hear few OSS enthusiasts arguing for Open Source Office Chairs (OSOC). Yep, your company could probably save money by giving new employees the OSS equivalent of an office chair--some cinder blocks and a piece of board. But would it really save money?
Although I'm a fan of much Open Source software, I just can't make the economics of replacing MS Office work.
If Apple sticks with the "big cats" theme, then 10.7 will the last of the dot releases of OS X. There are only 7 big cats, unless you count the various leopards separately (but somehow the distinction between the Neofelis nebulosa and the Neofelis diardi may be too fine).
The big cats are:
Tiger, Panthera tigris (Asia)
Lion, Panthera leo (Africa, Gir Forest in India; extinct in former range of southeast Europe, Middle East, much of Asia, and North America)
Jaguar, Panthera onca (the Americas; from the Southern United States and Mexico to northern Argentina)
Cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus (Africa and Iran; extinct in former range of India)
Cougar, Puma concolor (North and South America)
Leopards
Snow Leopard, Uncia uncia (mountains of central and south Asia)
Leopard, Panthera pardus (Asia and Africa)
Bornean Clouded Leopard, Neofelis diardi (Borneo and Sumatra)
Clouded Leopard, Neofelis nebulosa (southeast and south Asia)
It also has a strong bias for the types of sites that would use "the best free web counter in the world". It's unlikely that very many large commercial sites would use a a free counter, and want to share their stats with someone else. So not only is there a sampling problem, there is also a data collection problem. The numbers probably don't give an accurate value, but may be useful for trends. On the sites that we run, I've never seen IE (all variants) below 70% (and more like 80%). But then again, these sites are mostly targeting business users. (And the email client is almost always outlook, or a Blackberry.)
Slashdot Mirror
Question is... are there any restrictions on what the "security experts" can report? Is this a way to legally limit what they are allowed to say... in exchange for preview copies they sign a nondisclosure agreement to only report the issues to Apple? It seems that if Apple was really serious about security they would allow the experts (and others) to have access to the source code.
For mail, just have multiple MX records. Web hosting, ftp, etc is harder... but for most small businesses mail is really most important. We use a cheap Linksys RV016 to handle load balancing and failover. It's not perfect... but will happily handle up to 8 redundant ISP connections and automatically disable and re-route a failed one. It also handles load balancing... There are a couple of quirks with the unit... but for $300 it's a good deal.
As for outgoing mail, we use static IP from comcast and haven't had any problems with mail be rejected or port 25 being blocked. You'll pay a couple $ more for comcast business and the static IP... but they will gladly sell you a block of 8 or 32 for a few bucks. Also make sure you get a reverse DNS pointing to your domain.
It's not a terrible idea, and in the grand scheme of things not that expensive either. Probably less than a couple minutes advertising or a :30 on the Superbowl..... Reasonable chance that the stunt got picked up by mainstream media, and it did make it into /. and The Register.
Kind of cool
Short of bright sunny and 80F (which is unlikely in February in the Northeast), warm air (> 30 F) and fog is most effective at melting snow. The fog acts as a reasonable thermal conductor accelerating the snow melt. Surprising, rain is lousy at melting snow and just creates a mess. Cold and bright sun does melt some snow--especially if it's been plowed and is on blacktop (aka asphalt or bituminous concrete). Overtime, the snow also compresses so it appears to be melting.
Has anyone noticed what actions MC has taken to deal with the DDOS? It looks like they've done almost nothing--they are still trying to serve the same content and haven't moved their DNS servers off network. They did reduce the TTL on the DNS records to 15 minutes, but I'm not sure how that helps?
I would think that the inability to get to the DNS records would be blocking all the email traffic into MC (I couldn't see their MX records), which would bounce all the mail.
I would have thought that they had a backup plan to handle this kind of event--perhaps serving static web pages, backup DNS and a standby CDN contract to handle the traffic. It also seems odd that the DNS servers are on their network, but I'm sure that they have multiple carriers and centers.
It's surprising that a major IT-dependent firm isn't better able to handle this. On the other hand, as it's been pointed out, the website isn't used for the financial traffic.
What should they be doing to handle this kind of attack?
I think, at least with Outlook, the default is to not load images and the warning message is reasonably clear. Also, knowing that you received a message doesn't seem like that big of a deal. If you're concerned about confirming your email address (which is all the web beacons do) use a throw away address or turn off downloads
I assume that almost everyone who sends commercial email does this. It's not really news, and I don't think it's a big deal. Almost every email program (even Outlook) has an option to not download images--if you don't want to confirm that you've received the email, don't download images.
Also, as an occasional sender of commercial email just because the image has been downloaded doesn't mean it's been read. Just means the images have been downloaded.
This is why if you are sending out commercial email, make sure the key messages are visible without the images being downloaded. Tell your reader enough to make them want to a) read the rest, b) confirm that was read and c) download images.
This topic isn't news.
I think they are only blocking CDN, not simple web pages. If netflix detects that it would be blocked (based on the user's) ISP they could redirect to a simple web page hosted on nearly any (or multiple) networks. I guess really deep packet inspection could block all netflix content, but the argument about "conserving" bandwidth would be harder.
Dell is very segmented by market--consumer, small business, enterprise, healthcare, education and government. Although very similar products are sold in each market, the component quality, crapware, support and service varies. In the enterprise and up you can order custom images with your software preloaded, the support will be all domestic and a very high quality. The components used are better and machines seem better built. We've pretty much standardized on the bottom of the Precision workstation line (T1500) for our standard desktop and have been statisfied with build quality and support. For i7's not the cheapest machine made, but the convenience of quality and support outweighs the slightly higher initial cost.
The nearly same machine is sold for small businesses and consumers with slightly cheaper parts, foreign support and a "boatload" of crapware.
Like many purchases, you sometime get what you pay for. For Joe or Jane consumer, I'm not sure I'd recommend this strategy, but if you value your time there is a real value to a higher initial cost and a lower lifetime expense. (Known as lower TCO, which is marketing speak for expensive.)
How much are you actually paying for those Windows licenses? Are you spending more than $100 per employee? It's pretty hard to come up with a meaningful savings if all you can show is eliminating $33 per employee per year (assuming that the license has a 3 year life span, probably more since you skipped Vista). On new machines, prices out the savings of not buying Windows...maybe $50? You can show $33 per employee savings by autosetting B&W printing, switching your printer maintenance company, or turning off the monitor at the end of the day... or skipping a couple of lunches for the IT department. The desktop savings just aren't very powerful. And Open Office is close to word, but not identical. I'm guessing that your sales department want the decks to look perfect... not just be readable in Word.
There might be others in your organization who do "real work", that don't ever need to access a linux box. Marketing, finance, and even those "low lifes" who sell your product to customers. I suspect that over your firm's entire environment, relatively few need (or even know of) linux kernals. I thing you need to get out of the cube more often.
I have to say that you'll going to have a lot of resistance and create ill feelings by eliminating Outlook and Exchange. It's hard to see that you will get a huge amount of savings, and will probably irritate some of the people (or person) who signs your paycheck. Even you save a few bucks, no one will remember that when your access to gmail is down or some exec's blackberry doesn't synch right. I'd recommend being very careful and getting the senior execs sign-out off.
Also, it would be helpful if you described your "company" is some detail so the slashdot advice isn't (as) random.
Math is important for understanding statistics, probablity and financial literacy. It's also important for understanding queues; A good foundation in mathematics should include probability, basic statistics, some finance (interest rates, compound growth, mark-up, mark-down, ROI), fractions, percentages and a bit of symbolic arithmetic (aka, high school algebra). Understanding sets (union, intersection) doesn't hurt. The population would be less easily bamboozled if they had a basic grasp of math. And, yes I think numeracy is important for most white collar (and many blue collar) jobs. Most jobs in the 21st century are going to require high school math or better.
It seems to me that most code targets a very small number of platforms--if you're developing for the desktop/laptop business market, then you need to target the PC. If the product is the desktop/laptop consumer market, then target the Mac and the PC. If you're targeting the embedded processor market, you probably have a pretty good idea of the hardware and software that it will run on. I guess the only currently fragmented market is the mobile phone market, wehre there is still no clear winner on the hardware, software and OS.
If there is a new processor/hardware... java will not just run on it... someone will have to port the VM.
On the desktop, Java is just annoying. Every few weeks the damn updater asks about a download. Between updating Java and Flash you can pretty much keep busy.
And what's wrong with locking you into a single vendor? If you're the vendor. Thats what Oracle really wants to do.
There are a number of languages and lots of compilers that are not community supported. C# and F# languages and most of the C++ languages are not community supported. There are profit-making (or ones who hope so) companies that pay programmes to develop and support the languages. Customers pay to buy the compilers---although some of the tools may be sold at a loss to support the ecosystem.
Oracle can maintain the Java language and the tools without the OSS community. As for the rest of the open source projects that (the failing) Sun supported, unclear how they make any money.
If the real purpose in purchasing Sun was to get the hardware and hardware design talent then letting the various OSS projects taht Sun dabbled in die is a good idea. Rather than killing the projects directly, which would create bad press and feelings.... Oracle is just letting them quetly die. Why does Oracle care if competitive OSS projects like mySQL, open office or community Java live? This is really a very clever strategy on Oracle's part. They got the core of Sun and can quietly kill the various projects that they don't need or want.
Hard to see how Open Office can possibly make any money for Oracle. Does anyone pay for support on Open Office? (duck) Does anyone even use it?
Actually the real issue that property insurance companies are concerned about is rising ocean levels. If you look at a map, much of the insured property is fairly close to a coast. Rising water levels will increase the frequency and severity of damage from floods and wind-driven water. Some insurance companies have stopped writing insurance in flood-prone areas and it's even going to get worse.
So yes, global warming is a real concern to insurance companies--as they are used to looking out many years on the risk premiums.
(FYI, unless specifically purchased, most property insurance does not cover flood damage, but only damage from wind-driven water.)
I also thought that a turbine/electric car -- like the Chevy Volt--would be an ideal combo. The electric motor would power the wheels and the batteries would normally be charged by plugging in. However, if the batteries got low on the road the turbine would power up at full speed to charge the batteries and then shutdown. This would solve the probelm of turbines only being efficient at one speed. The turbine would run at it's design RPM while the batteries charge, and the turbine could be rated for optimal battery charging.
I'm guessing that cost is the problem, that there aren't any cheap turbine. Although http://waoline.com/detente/hobby/HobbyTurbines.htm sell model airplane turbunes, but I'm guessing they have terrible fuel economy.
We've switched about half our users to 2007/2010 (mostly with the purchase of a new machine), and after initial hesitation most users became quite positive about the new interface. After 2 weeks or so, they all reported it was easier to use and commands were more obvious. We do minor customization of the quick access tool bar to put some very common-to-us commands up there.
However, I have to say that 2010 is much better than 2007 (it just seems easier to use). I also wish they had added more functions to excel in addition to more colors, rows and columns. Excel really needs a built-in regex (not via macro) and a find last function.
The cost of MS Office are relatively small... For a mid-size or larger company the cost of an MS Office license is about $120 or so (depends on volume and license specifics, with the purchase of a new compnter it's nearly free). Assuming that a company rebuys a license every 2 to 3 years (for upgrades) the cost per year is about $50/employee per year. Assuming that the employee is paid $35K per year, Office cost about 0.14% of their wages. (A lower percentage for higher paid employees of course). You don't need to show much of a productivity improvement to justify the MS Office investment. A day of "conversion" training will cost $175 (35,000/200 working days). That pretty much blows the cost savings.
The office chair that the employee is sitting in costs more than 2 copies of Office, yet I hear few OSS enthusiasts arguing for Open Source Office Chairs (OSOC). Yep, your company could probably save money by giving new employees the OSS equivalent of an office chair--some cinder blocks and a piece of board. But would it really save money?
Although I'm a fan of much Open Source software, I just can't make the economics of replacing MS Office work.
That would be the wayback machine to OS 9 (which may have been one of the finest OSs ever). I welcome our XI overlords as well.
The big cats are:
It also has a strong bias for the types of sites that would use "the best free web counter in the world". It's unlikely that very many large commercial sites would use a a free counter, and want to share their stats with someone else. So not only is there a sampling problem, there is also a data collection problem. The numbers probably don't give an accurate value, but may be useful for trends. On the sites that we run, I've never seen IE (all variants) below 70% (and more like 80%). But then again, these sites are mostly targeting business users. (And the email client is almost always outlook, or a Blackberry.)
But switching names isn't cheap. Verizon spent a lot promoting their new name. BTW, it was Bell Atlantic -> NYNEX -> Verizon.
Name changes do create some risk. It certainly doesn't make it easier to promote "the product that was formerly known as OpenOffice"