Joining the discussion a bit late, but I wanted to say that this is exactly what many people don't get. I find it surprising that even here on Slashdot there are people who don't understand the consequences of bad software and/or user stupidity can have on a system. There was a similar article about Leopard-upgrade problems not long ago, which turned out to be due to the installation of a third party application (APE), which had been relying on a set of unsupported features. Yet some people gave the impression that Apple would somehow be liable.
Now, it could be argued that operating systems should be capable of protecting themselves better from low-level malfunctioning software than they are today. I don't see this happening any time soon. The trend of moving towards user-mode drivers might give some relief however, if designed properly. Either way, the simplest way today to avoid the problems is to be careful what is installed and how the system is used.
It is funny as you mentioned Windows ME as an example, as I actually used to run Windows ME at home and it turned out to be the most problem free version of Windows that I've ever used.
Not true. It has been studied that passangers who have learned the safety instructions beforehand and thus knows what to do in case of a crash have much better survival rate than those who haven't bothered. The same applies with to house fires, boat accidents etc. It might take a couple of minutes to learn safety instructions by heart, but if you happen to be in an unfortunate accident, it might save your life.
No, parent was right. In the unlikely event that one of these things they call "girls" *does* call, it is absolutely vital that the call get through. The odds of it happening twice in a lifetime are so astronomical as to be the stuff of fiction.
If the call gets trough, that still leaves us with the problem how to talk to the girl, doesn't it?
the comparison charts deal strictly with physical attributes, not things like GPS.
Really? I had no idea that "Internet Use", "Video Playback", and "Audio Playback" were physical attributes.
Time! Internet Use [Time]. Video Playback [Time]. Audio Playback [Time]. Timetimetime! How long the battery can keep up with the load. That certainly is a physical attribute.
There's more to UI than the look. That is one thing that should be learned in the OSS developer community. Firefox kind of looks like an Mac application on a Mac, but it surely does not feel like one the last time I checked.
I have DSL, but no landline phone. Just wondering what is the justification for requiring phone service before DSL? It's like you'd go to a grocery store to buy bread, and they won't sell it to you if you don't buy milk along with it. It just doesn't make any sense. Did you happen to ask? I'm not sure if that would be completely legal over here...
The blog entry on Washington post mentioned only one of the 25 vulnerabilities: Airport. It also mentioned an older vulnerability in Airport Extreme BaseStation. Now let's do a quick comparison of the AirPort vulnerability that was mentioned against the 24 other ones:
The flaw was local - There where several flaws that were remote exploits
The flaw affected only Airport users (required specific hardware) - None of the others required specific hardware
The flaw was in some base installations - Many of the other exploits were in all base installations
So from a security standpoint, the significance of that particular exploit was not very big. But if you want to be a sensationalist, it pretty much had all the elements: it sounds like a remote exploit that could be exploited just having the Airport turned on. And you don't even need to lie about the facts - just leave something untold. Makes a great headline. Sounds like FUD to me.
including a dangerous flaw present in the AirPort wireless devices built into a number of Apple computers, including the eMac, the iBook, iMac, Powerbook G3 and G4, and the Power Mac G4. Apple said computers with its AirPort Extreme wireless cards are not affected.
A buffer overflow vulnerability exists in the AirPortDriver module which processes control commands for AirPort. By sending malformed control commands, a local user could trigger the overflow which may lead to arbitrary code execution with elevated privileges. This issue affects eMac, iBook, iMac, PowerBook G3, PowerBook G4, and Power Mac G4 systems equipped with an original AirPort card. This issue does not affect systems with the AirPort Extreme card. This update addresses the issue by performing proper bounds checking.
Forgot to mention its local an exploit? Sounds like FUD spreading to me.
Everything has two sides. You maybe remember the Helios flight 522 in 2005? Quote from Wikipedia:
...it was determined that a body found in the cockpit area was that of a female flight attendant, suggesting that she was indeed trying to prevent a crash. DNA testing revealed that the blood on the aircraft controls was that of flight attendant Andreas Prodromou, a novice private pilot, suggesting he was the other person the F-16 pilots saw in the pilot's seat. [...]
The investigation showed that the cockpit door was locked during the flight. However, in the last few minutes of the flight, as the engines consumed the last drops of fuel, power was cut to several parts of the plane, including the cockpit door. This resulted in the door unlocking, giving access to the two.
The two flight attendants most likely didn't know the code as the purser had probably already lost consciousness...
Don't know where it came first, but here in Finland a company called Igglo photographed every house here a couple of years ago. There are now photos of every building online. And I have to admit, that if your buying or renting something it sure is a very nice service. But I understand the privacy issues. There was some protest over here especially about photographic single-family houses. And I actually saw these guys photographing the house I live in. My first impression about them was to call the police. Kind of funny later on when I figured who they were.
Okay. So PCs have more games? So what? It took several weeks for me to get the the last two games I bought for Windows to run. Many hours wasted on asking for support, and they still crash and show bugs. And do I even need to talk about problems with copy-protection on games that I have bought? Seriously. If you want to play games, don't waste time hacking the binaries to get them running (legal original discs!) on Windows. Go out and buy a console. Period. I've bought my last Windows game ever.
These kinds of products have been in Finland since 1990. I'm a bit surprised this is something new in the US. But on the other hand, I believe Finland is one of the leading countries in dairy products... if you don't count cheese.
Sorry if I seemed a bit harsh, but it was a Slashdot frontpage story after all and I think most of us kind of expected a bit more from it. As you probably know there already are much competition from tons of other programming-related wikis. Not that this is a bad idea, but there should be some foundation done before making this big much publicity...
That being said, I don't have anything against "solving a task" or two if this site would take off.
The site has absolutely no real content. There are only a couple of pages on the whole site. The most advanced thing found there is something along the lines of how to open a file with mIRC scripting (no C/C++/Java) and that bash scripts (usually) start with #!/bin/bash. Oh, please. Should I be impressed?
Apple can brand toilet paper as running OS X if they like
Yes.
Worst story ever. I believe you can mod it down in Slashdot's Firehose.
And did this guy actually believe iPhone would run on an Intel or PowerPC processor? And why would having an ARM processor mean that you couldn't have OS X on it? In the keynote, Steve Jobs mentioned some of the technologies that the phone uses, and yes it sounded very much like it is using OS X. And having OS X doesn't imply it has the whole package (e.g. I bet they don't have 1 GB of printer drivers on that thing).
Oh. Maybe it doesn't apply to.mac users. My account isn't a.mac one. I guess there might be some technical and policy issues why they don't allow you to change the.mac Apple ID yourself (e.g. hijacking old e-mail addresses). But not even trough customer support?
You can even change the email address associated with it, so while your Apple ID may be R3dM3rcury@mac.com, the email address associated with the account could be R3dMercury@fancydomain.org
Actually it goes even further. You can rename your Apple ID e.g from R3dM3rcury@mac.com just to R3dM3rcury if you want. I did it myself a couple of years ago on the Apple Developer Connection site under "Update Apple ID" and just checked that you can do the same in iTunes also.
I don't know about right now, but once Leopard comes out, I guess it would be Time Machine. Just wait until it starts shipping in the beginning of the next year.
If you don't want to wait or upgrade, write a shell script doing the job for you. I don't know what kind of experiences others have had with backup tools on the Mac, but Retrospect kept crashing on me when trying to run it. I wouldn't trust that kind of software to keep track of my backups. So I guess it's pretty much shell scripts or nothing right now.
Hey guess what if you put your files in your home directory guess where they are when you need them.
For instance, I have several thousands of PDFs total organized in several subfolders. For me, the fastest way to access the one I want is by searching for it. Not just the filename. Usually I search for content, as I don't exactly know in which PDF it is. It used to be a mess before Spotlight.
Similarly, I use Spotlight as an application launcher for apps I don't have in the Dock. It's so much cleaner to have the less used apps off the Dock! Before 10.4 you would either have all the apps you use in the Dock or take your time to find them in Finder. This is much better now.
Good question. I actually started with 10.0. So yes, it makes a lot of money, even if you buy with discount. But let's look it this way: would I downgrade to an earlier version if I'd get my money back? No. If I divide the sum of the costs with the months or hours I've got to use the latest features of OS X, the result will not be that significant. Or compare it to the cost of the hardware it runs on. So yes, I think it has been worth it. IIRC some figures of the user base have been shown now and then at the WWDC and it seems to be the case that many, if not most, seem to be upgrading.
I disagree. Let's take the two latest and the upcoming release of OS X as an example:
10.3 Exposé, FileVault
10.4 Spotlight, Dashboard
10.5 Time Machine, Spaces
Every new release have had tons of new features that have actually been useful. If Microsoft has troubles adding new useful features to their OS, that does not mean that others have the same problem. Don't judge other operating systems based how Microsoft is doing.
I had to comment on the '!itsnotatrap'-tag. Not it's not a trap? Please, please, don't use double negation! Why don't you just write itsatrap. That would be just so much less confusing.:-)
If you want to contribute software to charity, write some high-quality software yourself and contribute it.
What? Are you suggesting he should write his own Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition? Ofcourse not. Then why should he just throw it away if there's somebody out there who will find it useful, and would maybe buy it otherwise?
Besides, writing software is work. Donating software isn't. I don't think extra work was on his mind when he was posting this to Slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
Joining the discussion a bit late, but I wanted to say that this is exactly what many people don't get. I find it surprising that even here on Slashdot there are people who don't understand the consequences of bad software and/or user stupidity can have on a system. There was a similar article about Leopard-upgrade problems not long ago, which turned out to be due to the installation of a third party application (APE), which had been relying on a set of unsupported features. Yet some people gave the impression that Apple would somehow be liable.
Now, it could be argued that operating systems should be capable of protecting themselves better from low-level malfunctioning software than they are today. I don't see this happening any time soon. The trend of moving towards user-mode drivers might give some relief however, if designed properly. Either way, the simplest way today to avoid the problems is to be careful what is installed and how the system is used.
It is funny as you mentioned Windows ME as an example, as I actually used to run Windows ME at home and it turned out to be the most problem free version of Windows that I've ever used.
Not true. It has been studied that passangers who have learned the safety instructions beforehand and thus knows what to do in case of a crash have much better survival rate than those who haven't bothered. The same applies with to house fires, boat accidents etc. It might take a couple of minutes to learn safety instructions by heart, but if you happen to be in an unfortunate accident, it might save your life.
If the call gets trough, that still leaves us with the problem how to talk to the girl, doesn't it?
Time! Internet Use [Time]. Video Playback [Time]. Audio Playback [Time]. Timetimetime! How long the battery can keep up with the load. That certainly is a physical attribute.
There's more to UI than the look. That is one thing that should be learned in the OSS developer community. Firefox kind of looks like an Mac application on a Mac, but it surely does not feel like one the last time I checked.
I have DSL, but no landline phone. Just wondering what is the justification for requiring phone service before DSL? It's like you'd go to a grocery store to buy bread, and they won't sell it to you if you don't buy milk along with it. It just doesn't make any sense. Did you happen to ask? I'm not sure if that would be completely legal over here...
The blog entry on Washington post mentioned only one of the 25 vulnerabilities: Airport. It also mentioned an older vulnerability in Airport Extreme BaseStation. Now let's do a quick comparison of the AirPort vulnerability that was mentioned against the 24 other ones:
So from a security standpoint, the significance of that particular exploit was not very big. But if you want to be a sensationalist, it pretty much had all the elements: it sounds like a remote exploit that could be exploited just having the Airport turned on. And you don't even need to lie about the facts - just leave something untold. Makes a great headline. Sounds like FUD to me.
Washingtonpost:
Apple:
Forgot to mention its local an exploit? Sounds like FUD spreading to me.
Everything has two sides. You maybe remember the Helios flight 522 in 2005? Quote from Wikipedia:
T25seSBvbiBTbGFzaGRvdCB0aGVzZSBtZXNzYWdlcyB3aWxsIG FjdHVhbGx5IGJlIGRlY29kZWQuIDotKQ==
Don't know where it came first, but here in Finland a company called Igglo photographed every house here a couple of years ago. There are now photos of every building online. And I have to admit, that if your buying or renting something it sure is a very nice service. But I understand the privacy issues. There was some protest over here especially about photographic single-family houses. And I actually saw these guys photographing the house I live in. My first impression about them was to call the police. Kind of funny later on when I figured who they were.
Okay. So PCs have more games? So what? It took several weeks for me to get the the last two games I bought for Windows to run. Many hours wasted on asking for support, and they still crash and show bugs. And do I even need to talk about problems with copy-protection on games that I have bought? Seriously. If you want to play games, don't waste time hacking the binaries to get them running (legal original discs!) on Windows. Go out and buy a console. Period. I've bought my last Windows game ever.
These kinds of products have been in Finland since 1990. I'm a bit surprised this is something new in the US. But on the other hand, I believe Finland is one of the leading countries in dairy products... if you don't count cheese.
Sorry if I seemed a bit harsh, but it was a Slashdot frontpage story after all and I think most of us kind of expected a bit more from it. As you probably know there already are much competition from tons of other programming-related wikis. Not that this is a bad idea, but there should be some foundation done before making this big much publicity...
That being said, I don't have anything against "solving a task" or two if this site would take off.
The site has absolutely no real content. There are only a couple of pages on the whole site. The most advanced thing found there is something along the lines of how to open a file with mIRC scripting (no C/C++/Java) and that bash scripts (usually) start with #!/bin/bash. Oh, please. Should I be impressed?
Quote from the story:
Yes.
Worst story ever. I believe you can mod it down in Slashdot's Firehose.
And did this guy actually believe iPhone would run on an Intel or PowerPC processor? And why would having an ARM processor mean that you couldn't have OS X on it? In the keynote, Steve Jobs mentioned some of the technologies that the phone uses, and yes it sounded very much like it is using OS X. And having OS X doesn't imply it has the whole package (e.g. I bet they don't have 1 GB of printer drivers on that thing).
Oh. Maybe it doesn't apply to .mac users. My account isn't a .mac one. I guess there might be some technical and policy issues why they don't allow you to change the .mac Apple ID yourself (e.g. hijacking old e-mail addresses). But not even trough customer support?
Actually it goes even further. You can rename your Apple ID e.g from R3dM3rcury@mac.com just to R3dM3rcury if you want. I did it myself a couple of years ago on the Apple Developer Connection site under "Update Apple ID" and just checked that you can do the same in iTunes also.
I don't know about right now, but once Leopard comes out, I guess it would be Time Machine. Just wait until it starts shipping in the beginning of the next year.
If you don't want to wait or upgrade, write a shell script doing the job for you. I don't know what kind of experiences others have had with backup tools on the Mac, but Retrospect kept crashing on me when trying to run it. I wouldn't trust that kind of software to keep track of my backups. So I guess it's pretty much shell scripts or nothing right now.
Built? If you are the average Slashdotter, you merely did half of the design.
Although...
Getting that far can be already be seen as a great accomplishment over here. :-)
For instance, I have several thousands of PDFs total organized in several subfolders. For me, the fastest way to access the one I want is by searching for it. Not just the filename. Usually I search for content, as I don't exactly know in which PDF it is. It used to be a mess before Spotlight.
Similarly, I use Spotlight as an application launcher for apps I don't have in the Dock. It's so much cleaner to have the less used apps off the Dock! Before 10.4 you would either have all the apps you use in the Dock or take your time to find them in Finder. This is much better now.
Good question. I actually started with 10.0. So yes, it makes a lot of money, even if you buy with discount. But let's look it this way: would I downgrade to an earlier version if I'd get my money back? No. If I divide the sum of the costs with the months or hours I've got to use the latest features of OS X, the result will not be that significant. Or compare it to the cost of the hardware it runs on. So yes, I think it has been worth it. IIRC some figures of the user base have been shown now and then at the WWDC and it seems to be the case that many, if not most, seem to be upgrading.
I disagree. Let's take the two latest and the upcoming release of OS X as an example:
Every new release have had tons of new features that have actually been useful. If Microsoft has troubles adding new useful features to their OS, that does not mean that others have the same problem. Don't judge other operating systems based how Microsoft is doing.
I had to comment on the '!itsnotatrap'-tag. Not it's not a trap? Please, please, don't use double negation! Why don't you just write itsatrap. That would be just so much less confusing. :-)
What? Are you suggesting he should write his own Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition? Ofcourse not. Then why should he just throw it away if there's somebody out there who will find it useful, and would maybe buy it otherwise?
Besides, writing software is work. Donating software isn't. I don't think extra work was on his mind when he was posting this to Slashdot.