True - but a lot of people call me to set up their routers because they screwed it up when they tried it themselves.
A lot of people CAN'T hook up two wires correctly or run the CD that came with the router correctly.
That's especially true for the wireless routers these days. Everybody wants to go wireless - and that's not easy at all. My own success at hooking up wireless routers is approaching 50-50, courtesy of the shitty Windows IP stack hosing itself if you breath on it.
See my response below to a message below. I agree that hardware routers are better, but they can be complicated for end users to set up as well.
As for file and printer sharing, Kerio has a simple setting to allow Windows file and printer sharing - you merely tell it that it's running on a PC in a windows network and specify the internal network address, usually 198.162.0.0.
Kerio 2.1.5 is not much of a resource hog and is very easy to use compared to some others. Once you've answered the Permit question to your normal programs that access the Net, and set it to stop asking, it's completely invisible.
Agreed - hardware routers with built-in software firewalls are better than PC software firewalls. However, home users find routers complicated to set up as well.
Kerio 2.1.5 is good because it's simple - once installed, whenever a program accesses the Net, Kerio asks if it should be allowed. All the user has to do is click a checkbox to remember the rules, then click "Permit". After that, Kerio doesn't ask about that program. Once all the user's Net-accessible programs are covered, the user merely has to set Kerio to never ask about anything again. At that point, Kerio is invisible to the user.
The only problem that arises is when the user adds a new program which accesses the Net. If he doesn't remember that the firewall is set not to ask, he may become confused when the new program doesn't function. I've done this myself frequently. The firewall is so invisible that you forget it's there.
The point is that a 98-99% detection rate is adequate for home users, BECAUSE they will probably not be hit by enough virus-laden emails or other sources to make that 1% chance a REAl 1% chance.
1% of thousands means you gets hit. 1% of dozens of emails means it may be ten years before you get hit.
I have used AVG or Avast for four years and never been hit by a virus.
Naturally, over scores of thousands of home users, some WILL be hit, and, yes, some spam or popups or damage to their systems will occur.
The same is true of Norton and McAfee and any other AV. The reduction in frequency from 1% to 1/2 of 1% doesn't justify home users paying for the higher detection rate.
The real issue of spammers is caused by the trojan droppers coming in from home users using IE and getting Active X hits. Viruses per se tend not to do that. And Norton and McAfee have crappy trojan detection, which is why I recommend a specific anti-trojan utility like A-Squared.
1) You're not a company that gets thousands of virus-laden emails a day. You don't need to pay for Norton or McAfee. A 98-99% detection rate is perfectly adequate for a home user.
2) Install AVG or Avast AV. They're free, they update automatically, they're light on resources and they work.
3) Install Spybot Search and Destroy, SpywareBlaster, Ad-Aware and Windows Defender.
4) Install a software firewall like Kerio or just use Windows XP's firewall. If you install Kerio, use V2.1.5 because it's non-intrusive. The later versions are too picky and get in your face.
5) Stop using IE and use Firefox.
6) Lately, since trojans are on the upswing, I say install A-Squared anti-trojan which is free with manual updates.
7) Don't click on popups. Don't even click on the "No" button - click the window close button.
8) Don't install anything offered you by a Web site unless the site is a general freeware or shareware site that explicitly states it checks for spyware and adware.
9) Keep up with Windows updates and updates for the malware detector software.
10) Run a scan once a week or if you see any popups at all.
I've used these rules on Windows 98, 2000 and XP for four years with virtually NO spyware getting through - and that's with porn site visits and whatever else the Web can throw at me.
The single most important rule is number 5 - use Firefox. With no ActiveX, the stuff can't get in unless you have an OS vulnerability or you deliberate install it in response to a prompt you don't understand.
Finally, if they really want to be secure, switch to Mac or Linux.
Everybody knows NTFS is superior to FAT32 - BUT FAT32 is FAR more compatible with Linux - until now, anyway.
And even now, I'm not switching my Mandriva 2006 to this driver and converting my Windows FAT32 partitions to NTFS until this thing has had a nice shakedown - and has been included in the next Mandriva and other distro releases.
I'm not chancing that this thing will trash my Windows partitions and leave me screwed when I need to be supporting a client on the Windows side of the machine.
Let's all remember the geniuses at Fedora who never tested Fedora Core 2 with a dual-boot system and a lot of people ended up not being able to boot Windows after installing. Sure, for most savvy people it was an "easy" command-line fix and no data was lost - once somebody figured out the problem - but for a lot of people it was a major pain in the ass.
Yup - Ultimate Boot CD For Windows is based on Bart's PE, with additional utilities.
As a PC tech support guy, I couldn't live without it.
It could use some improvement, but then it is being improved all the time. The last version I got, though, had some issues with some of the utilities.
You can even put this thing on a (large - 1GB) USB key and boot Windows from the USB key (IF the system BIOS allows it - which most clients PC's don't, unless they've very new.)
It's the fact that some fucking moron would use tabs in the middle of code.
NEVER use tabs in code - or if you do, use an editor like jEdit that can automatically change them to spaces. That way you have the advantage of being lazy and also some future coder who does not use tabs doesn't have to worry about your freakin' tabs screwing up while he's editing it. Do you know how many times I've deleted one goddamn space only to have the whole line jump four or even EIGHT spaces over too far? Morons...
And anybody who uses vi OR vim OR emacs is an idiot - who probably spent half a year learning the thing when he could have used a better editor (assuming he's not an old fogie who learned vi back when there WAS no better editor - such a geezer is excused but should be retired anyway since he's now hopeless.)
So the answer is: no, nobody has tried it on less than a 1.2GHz with 512MB RAM. Most people are testing it on machines over 2GHz with 512MB-1GB RAM and high video RAM. Some people say it works OK - but nobody indicated that they were running a dozen things at once on it besides the OS.
Color me skeptical that an 800MHz machine is going to run this - despite any memory performance enhancements Microsoft manages to shoe in by end of the year.
No, that's BILL'S excuse - "It doesn't make me any money, so we're not doing it."
If you think about it, it doesn't matter if the number of patches per month is large or small. It's just a matter of having enough people to deal with ALL of them, on a pipeline where it ends up in a security patch download on Microsoft Update.
The problem for BILL is the number of people he has to pull off his "upgrade" and "new" products like Vista - which DO make him money - to the problem of security which does NOT make him any money.
It's that simple. It always has been and always will be - which is why Microsoft Windows will NEVER be secure.
Note that most other companies do what's necessary to issue patches when the fix is done. Microsoft doesn't solely and entirely because of Bill Gate's attitudes about money.
Halle Berry tits. John Travolta doing his Scientologist impression. Hugh Jackman humping his computer. Hot blonde giving a blowjob to a hacker trying to penetrate the DoD system. A Finnish hacker named Axel Torvalds. What's not to like?
By the way, I did a spyware cleaning for a client yesterday (AND have to go back soon because it wasn't entirely effective despite using all the latest anti-trojan/spyware/AV tools) who indeed suggested to me that Microsoft was deliberately creating these things to make another market for itself.
So, yeah, there are consumers out there who believe that - I'm starting to take the idea seriously.
Isn't that one of the criteria for being hired there?
How do we know half the Microsoft employees aren't Russian (or Italian or Korean or Chinese or Israeli) Mafia infiltrated into Microsoft? They'd fit right in with Bill's corporate culture.
The public Beta is out. Anybody actually TRIED running this AND applications on the barebones spec of 800MHz and 512MB of RAM as well as the 1GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM?
By apps, I mean the current version of Microsoft Office with Word and Excel open at the same time, and the IE browser open, and maybe Messenger, and the usual tray full of crap most people run.
I want to hear a REAL-WORLD test from the people using the public Beta on REAL machines.
I find it hard to believe that everybody INCLUDING MICROSOFT was talking about 3GHz machines and 1GB of RAM at a minimum last year, and now suddenly we're down to 800MHz CPUs?
What's wrong with this picture? Don't blame it on the media because Microsoft ITSELF was talking those specs last year.
(Yeah, I know he's staying Chairman - so when was he EVER "CTO" for real, anyway? He runs the company and Ballmer is his pit bull. The board needs to fire both their stupid asses.)
"don't you dare install anything on a working Windows server "
Don't UNINSTALL anything, either - Windows will instantly crash the IP stack, if the software being uninstalled has anything to do with the stack.
I've uninstalled McAfee on a client's machine and instantly the machine would not connect to a Linksys router it was connecting to fine a minute before.
Windows Registry is the biggest piece of shit on Windows. It's a disaster for reliability.
And on Windows XP, unlike 98 and 2000, you have to jump through hoops to reinstall the IP stack.
The documentation argument is TOTALLY bogus, not just a little.
Any server admin who doesn't have the manual for his system and every piece of software on it that could impact uptime is an idiot.
And there are manuals and books for every major Linux distro, desktop and server. You can even download them for free from alt.binaries.ebooks.technical or other sites that distribute copyrighted stuff. And all the major distros have server admin manuals available for download.
What Yankee might be saying is the time to look up something IN the manuals. I don't see how that would be any different between Linux and Windows, except the possibility that for a minor outage, you only need to click something in Windows, whereas in Linux you might have to do a command line syntax search - obviously slightly harder. You still have to figure out what and where to click in Windows, and in Windows 2003 Server that is NOT easy, given the mass of menus, dialogs, checkboxes, policies, ad nauseum.
This could hardly translate into two hours per incident unless the reason for the crash is really bizarre.
Contrast this with trying to just configure basic wireless in Windows XP. You get everything set up EXACTLY the way the books say - and it doesn't work. Worse, you uninstall McAfee or some other piece of software and Windows immediately destroys the IP stack, necessitating an hour of hunting for the way to reinstall the stack on top of itself to correct the problem (if you're lucky - I've run WinSockFix and sometimes it does nothing to correct the problem.)
I've spent four hours trying to get wireless working in Windows XP with a couple clients now and eventually gave up and told them to reinstall XP. This is the ONLY guaranteed way to get wireless working in Windows XP.
Compare that to Linux where it may be hard to get the wireless working due to relatively poor wireless AP/card vendor support for Linux, but once it's up, it runs fine forever. Whereas if you use wireless in Windows for a while, it will eventually hose itself again and stop working for no known reason - and then can't be restarted without a stack reinstall.
Again, THE number one problem in Windows is that goddamn Registry. It is utterly unreliable and fragile.
Practically half the time I set up wireless on a client's XP machine, the fucking IP stack gets hosed "somehow" with the result that the wireless won't connect, or the machine can't get an IP address from the DHCP server on the wireless AP, or some crap.
I'm losing money with my "no fix, no charge" policy because of Windows shitty IP stack that hoses itself in two minutes merely by uninstalling McAfee or Norton, or merely running wireless for X amount of time, let alone half the spyware in existence.
Yes, I know the "fixes" - reinstall the IP stack, run the netsh utility, run WinsockFix, yada, yada.
It shouldn't be necessary. FIX THE GODDAMN REGISTRY SO IT DOESN'T FAIL CONSTANTLY!
Windows is shit. Wireless is shit. The industry is shit.
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True - but a lot of people call me to set up their routers because they screwed it up when they tried it themselves.
A lot of people CAN'T hook up two wires correctly or run the CD that came with the router correctly.
That's especially true for the wireless routers these days. Everybody wants to go wireless - and that's not easy at all. My own success at hooking up wireless routers is approaching 50-50, courtesy of the shitty Windows IP stack hosing itself if you breath on it.
Kerio doesn't leave those ports open to the Net - it leaves them open only to the "trusted" network, which is the internal 192.168.0.0 network.
A hardware router with firewall is certainly better, but some people simply don't have one. A free software firewall is better than none.
See my response below to a message below. I agree that hardware routers are better, but they can be complicated for end users to set up as well.
As for file and printer sharing, Kerio has a simple setting to allow Windows file and printer sharing - you merely tell it that it's running on a PC in a windows network and specify the internal network address, usually 198.162.0.0.
Kerio 2.1.5 is not much of a resource hog and is very easy to use compared to some others. Once you've answered the Permit question to your normal programs that access the Net, and set it to stop asking, it's completely invisible.
Agreed - hardware routers with built-in software firewalls are better than PC software firewalls. However, home users find routers complicated to set up as well.
Kerio 2.1.5 is good because it's simple - once installed, whenever a program accesses the Net, Kerio asks if it should be allowed. All the user has to do is click a checkbox to remember the rules, then click "Permit". After that, Kerio doesn't ask about that program. Once all the user's Net-accessible programs are covered, the user merely has to set Kerio to never ask about anything again. At that point, Kerio is invisible to the user.
The only problem that arises is when the user adds a new program which accesses the Net. If he doesn't remember that the firewall is set not to ask, he may become confused when the new program doesn't function. I've done this myself frequently. The firewall is so invisible that you forget it's there.
The point is that a 98-99% detection rate is adequate for home users, BECAUSE they will probably not be hit by enough virus-laden emails or other sources to make that 1% chance a REAl 1% chance.
1% of thousands means you gets hit. 1% of dozens of emails means it may be ten years before you get hit.
I have used AVG or Avast for four years and never been hit by a virus.
Naturally, over scores of thousands of home users, some WILL be hit, and, yes, some spam or popups or damage to their systems will occur.
The same is true of Norton and McAfee and any other AV. The reduction in frequency from 1% to 1/2 of 1% doesn't justify home users paying for the higher detection rate.
The real issue of spammers is caused by the trojan droppers coming in from home users using IE and getting Active X hits. Viruses per se tend not to do that. And Norton and McAfee have crappy trojan detection, which is why I recommend a specific anti-trojan utility like A-Squared.
For home users, I tell them the following:
1) You're not a company that gets thousands of virus-laden emails a day. You don't need to pay for Norton or McAfee. A 98-99% detection rate is perfectly adequate for a home user.
2) Install AVG or Avast AV. They're free, they update automatically, they're light on resources and they work.
3) Install Spybot Search and Destroy, SpywareBlaster, Ad-Aware and Windows Defender.
4) Install a software firewall like Kerio or just use Windows XP's firewall. If you install Kerio, use V2.1.5 because it's non-intrusive. The later versions are too picky and get in your face.
5) Stop using IE and use Firefox.
6) Lately, since trojans are on the upswing, I say install A-Squared anti-trojan which is free with manual updates.
7) Don't click on popups. Don't even click on the "No" button - click the window close button.
8) Don't install anything offered you by a Web site unless the site is a general freeware or shareware site that explicitly states it checks for spyware and adware.
9) Keep up with Windows updates and updates for the malware detector software.
10) Run a scan once a week or if you see any popups at all.
I've used these rules on Windows 98, 2000 and XP for four years with virtually NO spyware getting through - and that's with porn site visits and whatever else the Web can throw at me.
The single most important rule is number 5 - use Firefox. With no ActiveX, the stuff can't get in unless you have an OS vulnerability or you deliberate install it in response to a prompt you don't understand.
Finally, if they really want to be secure, switch to Mac or Linux.
Everybody knows NTFS is superior to FAT32 - BUT FAT32 is FAR more compatible with Linux - until now, anyway.
And even now, I'm not switching my Mandriva 2006 to this driver and converting my Windows FAT32 partitions to NTFS until this thing has had a nice shakedown - and has been included in the next Mandriva and other distro releases.
I'm not chancing that this thing will trash my Windows partitions and leave me screwed when I need to be supporting a client on the Windows side of the machine.
Let's all remember the geniuses at Fedora who never tested Fedora Core 2 with a dual-boot system and a lot of people ended up not being able to boot Windows after installing. Sure, for most savvy people it was an "easy" command-line fix and no data was lost - once somebody figured out the problem - but for a lot of people it was a major pain in the ass.
Yup - Ultimate Boot CD For Windows is based on Bart's PE, with additional utilities.
As a PC tech support guy, I couldn't live without it.
It could use some improvement, but then it is being improved all the time. The last version I got, though, had some issues with some of the utilities.
You can even put this thing on a (large - 1GB) USB key and boot Windows from the USB key (IF the system BIOS allows it - which most clients PC's don't, unless they've very new.)
"I just gave nuclear technology to India, which has eighty million more Muslims than Iran.
Y'all feel safer now?"
You're an idiot.
The first problem is what happens when hackers figure out how to use the backdoors, too?
Secondly, the government does not need any of this crap. WITH A WARRANT, they can access ANYTHING ALREADY.
This is just justification for more ILLEGAL spying.
Which, again, makes you an idiot.
Use an editor that increases and decreases indents then - like jEdit.
It's the fact that some fucking moron would use tabs in the middle of code.
NEVER use tabs in code - or if you do, use an editor like jEdit that can automatically change them to spaces. That way you have the advantage of being lazy and also some future coder who does not use tabs doesn't have to worry about your freakin' tabs screwing up while he's editing it. Do you know how many times I've deleted one goddamn space only to have the whole line jump four or even EIGHT spaces over too far? Morons...
And anybody who uses vi OR vim OR emacs is an idiot - who probably spent half a year learning the thing when he could have used a better editor (assuming he's not an old fogie who learned vi back when there WAS no better editor - such a geezer is excused but should be retired anyway since he's now hopeless.)
Satisfied? Now rate this troll and STFU!
So the answer is: no, nobody has tried it on less than a 1.2GHz with 512MB RAM. Most people are testing it on machines over 2GHz with 512MB-1GB RAM and high video RAM. Some people say it works OK - but nobody indicated that they were running a dozen things at once on it besides the OS.
Color me skeptical that an 800MHz machine is going to run this - despite any memory performance enhancements Microsoft manages to shoe in by end of the year.
No, that's BILL'S excuse - "It doesn't make me any money, so we're not doing it."
If you think about it, it doesn't matter if the number of patches per month is large or small. It's just a matter of having enough people to deal with ALL of them, on a pipeline where it ends up in a security patch download on Microsoft Update.
The problem for BILL is the number of people he has to pull off his "upgrade" and "new" products like Vista - which DO make him money - to the problem of security which does NOT make him any money.
It's that simple. It always has been and always will be - which is why Microsoft Windows will NEVER be secure.
Note that most other companies do what's necessary to issue patches when the fix is done. Microsoft doesn't solely and entirely because of Bill Gate's attitudes about money.
Great movie.
Halle Berry tits. John Travolta doing his Scientologist impression. Hugh Jackman humping his computer. Hot blonde giving a blowjob to a hacker trying to penetrate the DoD system. A Finnish hacker named Axel Torvalds. What's not to like?
By the way, I did a spyware cleaning for a client yesterday (AND have to go back soon because it wasn't entirely effective despite using all the latest anti-trojan/spyware/AV tools) who indeed suggested to me that Microsoft was deliberately creating these things to make another market for itself.
So, yeah, there are consumers out there who believe that - I'm starting to take the idea seriously.
Sounds like a lot of Microsoft employees...
Isn't that one of the criteria for being hired there?
How do we know half the Microsoft employees aren't Russian (or Italian or Korean or Chinese or Israeli) Mafia infiltrated into Microsoft? They'd fit right in with Bill's corporate culture.
The public Beta is out. Anybody actually TRIED running this AND applications on the barebones spec of 800MHz and 512MB of RAM as well as the 1GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM?
By apps, I mean the current version of Microsoft Office with Word and Excel open at the same time, and the IE browser open, and maybe Messenger, and the usual tray full of crap most people run.
I want to hear a REAL-WORLD test from the people using the public Beta on REAL machines.
I find it hard to believe that everybody INCLUDING MICROSOFT was talking about 3GHz machines and 1GB of RAM at a minimum last year, and now suddenly we're down to 800MHz CPUs?
What's wrong with this picture? Don't blame it on the media because Microsoft ITSELF was talking those specs last year.
the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Bill!
(Yeah, I know he's staying Chairman - so when was he EVER "CTO" for real, anyway? He runs the company and Ballmer is his pit bull. The board needs to fire both their stupid asses.)
Since the current Pope used to be head of the Office of the Inquisition.
They renamed it in the late 19th Century, IIRC, due to the bad PR, but it's the same office.
"don't you dare install anything on a working Windows server "
Don't UNINSTALL anything, either - Windows will instantly crash the IP stack, if the software being uninstalled has anything to do with the stack.
I've uninstalled McAfee on a client's machine and instantly the machine would not connect to a Linksys router it was connecting to fine a minute before.
Windows Registry is the biggest piece of shit on Windows. It's a disaster for reliability.
And on Windows XP, unlike 98 and 2000, you have to jump through hoops to reinstall the IP stack.
The documentation argument is TOTALLY bogus, not just a little.
Any server admin who doesn't have the manual for his system and every piece of software on it that could impact uptime is an idiot.
And there are manuals and books for every major Linux distro, desktop and server. You can even download them for free from alt.binaries.ebooks.technical or other sites that distribute copyrighted stuff. And all the major distros have server admin manuals available for download.
What Yankee might be saying is the time to look up something IN the manuals. I don't see how that would be any different between Linux and Windows, except the possibility that for a minor outage, you only need to click something in Windows, whereas in Linux you might have to do a command line syntax search - obviously slightly harder. You still have to figure out what and where to click in Windows, and in Windows 2003 Server that is NOT easy, given the mass of menus, dialogs, checkboxes, policies, ad nauseum.
This could hardly translate into two hours per incident unless the reason for the crash is really bizarre.
Contrast this with trying to just configure basic wireless in Windows XP. You get everything set up EXACTLY the way the books say - and it doesn't work. Worse, you uninstall McAfee or some other piece of software and Windows immediately destroys the IP stack, necessitating an hour of hunting for the way to reinstall the stack on top of itself to correct the problem (if you're lucky - I've run WinSockFix and sometimes it does nothing to correct the problem.)
I've spent four hours trying to get wireless working in Windows XP with a couple clients now and eventually gave up and told them to reinstall XP. This is the ONLY guaranteed way to get wireless working in Windows XP.
Compare that to Linux where it may be hard to get the wireless working due to relatively poor wireless AP/card vendor support for Linux, but once it's up, it runs fine forever. Whereas if you use wireless in Windows for a while, it will eventually hose itself again and stop working for no known reason - and then can't be restarted without a stack reinstall.
Again, THE number one problem in Windows is that goddamn Registry. It is utterly unreliable and fragile.
What if you put a Linux server on Venus?
Then Windows is from Mars and Linux is from Venus?
I smell a book franchise here.
Neither can anybody else apparently from the fifty posts above trying to do a simple percentage multiplication.
Jesus!
Practically half the time I set up wireless on a client's XP machine, the fucking IP stack gets hosed "somehow" with the result that the wireless won't connect, or the machine can't get an IP address from the DHCP server on the wireless AP, or some crap.
I'm losing money with my "no fix, no charge" policy because of Windows shitty IP stack that hoses itself in two minutes merely by uninstalling McAfee or Norton, or merely running wireless for X amount of time, let alone half the spyware in existence.
Yes, I know the "fixes" - reinstall the IP stack, run the netsh utility, run WinsockFix, yada, yada.
It shouldn't be necessary. FIX THE GODDAMN REGISTRY SO IT DOESN'T FAIL CONSTANTLY!
Windows is shit. Wireless is shit. The industry is shit.
Nothing works and nobody cares.