1. Factory machines are WAY over-priced to begin with. Existing Linux users already know the benefit of piecing a machine together themselves and how much it shaves off the price.
Not always. The benefit of building a machine yourself is not that it's cheaper, but that you can build using quality parts for an affordable price. I would imagine the motherboards and video cards in the average budget brand-name PC are crap compared to what you can buy OEM from a parts shop when building your own.
Ah, but also no SVG outside of Mozilla's implementation (until other native implementations pop up). This is not a good thing. Also no MNG and no JPEG2000. There -are- very valid uses of plug-ins.
We bought Symantec licenses for our Windows workstations last year, and despite keeping everything up to date, several PCs got infected (silly people clicking on attachments, mainly). We switched to Grisoft's AVG. Free, simple, and very good.
Did you buy AVG, because the free version is for non-commercial use only. You need to pay if you're using it in a business.
The link to the product you posted, also states that there is only a 2 year "subscription" period for the updates, before you'll have to pay for another license
Nope, click on AVG Free Edition. It's only for North American users and is English language only with a basic interface, but it's fast, runs resident, has free automatic signature updates, etc. I've been using it for years now and it's great. Oh yea, and it's also only for non-commercial/home users. I'm glad if I'm stuck with Windows at least I don't have to get screwed annually on anti-virus signature fees. Anti-virus vendors have the biggest racket going on and I'm absolutely positive they produce many of the viruses that go around.
Of course in my opinion, if you want video games, buy a playstation, but that is just me.
Actually I've found that consoles really suck for games. They are all basically the same thing with different graphics. PCs on the other hand have much more interesting games. You'd never see Battlefield 1942 on a console for example.
As I stated before... lesson learnt. Not a lesson that I will forget. Thank you.
Aren't you glad you had the opportunity to deal with such juvenile spamcops? Who would've thought 8 years ago a small bit of annoyance with a rising mass-mail problem would fester into a steaming cauldron of 12 year old anti-spam crusaders? The earlier mail admins must've beat their toddlers everytime they received spam to instill such hatred of bulk-mail marketing.
(Oh I'm ever so anxiously awaiting their trademark comeback labelling me a spammer for disagreeing with them!)
there is already enough infrastructure in place for this to occur now. verisign and friends as trusted signers, and smtp-ssl. the only other thing required is the will to put it to work.
Oh that's just fscking great. And to register a trusted mail server will no doubt cost $1000/year for a Verisign "trusted" certificate. Screw that. If you can do the same thing but make it open source then I'd say go for it, but if I have to be ass-raped by Verisign for another minute I'll give up on the entire god damn Internet.
One idea I've had (or maybe I've heard it somewhere else, I can't remember) is authorization. Change the protocol, or maybe just implement at server, so that before anyone can send you an email they have to request permission.
You mean like TMDA? From their freshmeat description:
The Tagged Message Delivery Agent (TMDA) reduces the amount of SPAM/UCE (junkmail) you receive. It combines a "whitelist" (for known/trusted senders), a "blacklist" (for undesired senders), and a cryptographically-enhanced confirmation system (for unknown, but legitimate, senders).
The problem is, that's fine and dandy for most things, but are you sure every mailing list you're on is whitelisted? Did you remember to whitelist any companies you do business with? I'm sure their auto-responders aren't going to respond to your automatically generated cryptographically-enhanced confirmation system so you may not ever get that info about your eBay bid or the receipt for an online purchase. You may have whitelisted store.com but their confirmation mail comes from store.yahoo.com, etc. What do you do? It's an annoying problem. I say legalize the ability to punch known spammers in the nuts once per spam message. That should fix the problem.
I'm trying to register for classes right now and my stupid university's servers (which run MS) aren't letting anyone log on...
Well, I always say, never do today what you could put off until next week. It's amazingly stupid that your university requires you to register on the first day of classes. Most of them let students register months in advance. Oh, you were too lazy to do that right?
Re:It is probably no coincidence, then...
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P2P Spam?
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Al Qaeda seems to like things that go bang!
Like the Niagra-Mohawk power grid outage? Oh right, that wasn't a terrorist attack. *wink*. FirstEnergy is just completely incompetent.... err.. ok I guess I can buy that.
Re:Truly P2P if SOBIG.G contains the spam message
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P2P Spam?
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They'd need some big balls to associate their company name with a virus.
There are companies that try to market penis pills on TV and radio for god's sake. You think there will be a lack of market for these virus spam services? As long as there is snake oil to sell there will be snake oil salesmen.
The only people that will complain about this are the people who routinely break the traffic laws. I know I wouldn't speed anymore if I knew it would result in an automatic ticket. Same as P2P really. It was all fun and games when you couldn't get in trouble for doing it. Then when the RIAA started suing people they wised up and started to realize that the chance of getting in trouble was too great to risk. I haven't used a P2P app in months. It's just not worth sacrificing a clean criminal record and my future employment opportunities to download some crappy music. I think the federal government should mandate these monitors in US cars by 2005 and provide funding for the roadside sensors.
The problem with reading/. is that it constantly reminds me of the fact that I'm living in a world full of philistines and I find that depressing.
The real problem you have with Slashdot is that there are people here that actually have a differing opinion from you and you feel insecure about that. I'm sure in your small clique of "friends" everyone wholeheartedly agrees with each other, but in the real world it both suprises and frightens you that people feel differently about subjects. So instead of sitting back and thinking about why that may be, you lash out and come up with half-ass remarks in a lame attempt to feel better about your viewpoint. At least that's what my therapist told me.
I think it's much more dramatic to see the explosion without hearing the sound, like they did in 2001: A Space Oddessy, rather than the way they did it in Star Wars
The trouble with 2001 is that it was extremely boring. I very rarely fall asleep during a movie, but that one took the cake. All I remember about that movie was classical music and that it made me fall asleep 5 minutes into it. Horrible, horrible film.
Redhat, Debian, Yellow Dog, Sco/Caldera "OpenLinux", RTLinux, Slackware... in total there are 189 different distributions. I'd be happy to list them all for you.
What's your point? I wasn't saying the amount of Linux distributions was any better. FreeBSD or OpenBSD would be better examples of operating systems that have stood firm.
I know of two - Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server.
Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Data Center, Windows XP Home, Windows XP Professional, Windows NT 4.0 Server, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows 98SE are all still in wide use. In fact, I've yet to see anyone running Windows 2003 Server, especially around work, since none of our software is certified for anything but Windows 2000 (SP 3 at that). We only got rid of the last NT server in our group last fall after one of our vendors finally certified their product for Windows 2000. I would imagine they'll support Windows 2003 Server sometime in 2005.
So please, don't call an HD that is in the same computer, or even the same server rack, your backup. However, a network connected machine on the other side of your building will do just fine.
That's what I tried telling those RIAA bastards but they won't believe me. Putting my CD backups on Kazaa was simply the safest backup investment I could've ever made. Then they came along and labelled me a pirate! A pirate!? I'm just trying to backup my valuable data! Where better than in a distributed format strewn all across the Internet? Even if the entire United States were to blow up I could still retrieve my data from China! Please RIAA, think of the backups.
I wouldn't really call gamers high bandwidth users. Most online games don't use that much bandwidth. Latency is far more important from what I've seen. The actual bandwidth needed is probably under 128Kbps for a very good reliable connection. That's basically how much grandma uses browsing the web and downloading pictures of the grandkids.
It is pure, gleeful schadenfeude for me to think of all the hapless PHBs and MSCSE CIOs who are finally being given a little hint as to just how vulnerable they've left their companies.
Look, you don't have to be a pretentious dick about it. Worms can hit any platform including your relativelysecureoperating systems. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and frankly, major Linux distributions have more than their fair share of major security vulnerabilities. The only saving grace of Linux is that it's relatively obscure OS compared to other major operating systems like Windows or MacOS. I count 41 security vulnerabilities in Red Hat 9 alone since late March. Many of those could've been exploited by a worm or malicious trojan and spread if as many people used Linux as they do Windows.
So get off your high horse and realize that every one of those operating systems you're pointing out was affected by major security vulnerabilities in the last year. Even OpenBSD, that bastion of secure operating systems, had a MAJOR remote root exploit in the default install (OpenSSH). Nobody is immune to bad programming and just bad luck. Shit happens, that's why there are patches. The problem is lazy incompetent system administration and not patching systems when they become available.
*rant* And for Christ's sake people, SHUT OFF DAEMONS YOU DON'T USE! Does your Solaris box REALLY need to be running ANY of that shit in/etc/inetd.conf that comes enabled by default? The answer is NO. Solaris works just peachy with everything in inetd.conf disabled, RPC disabled, and practically every other daemon started in the init scripts disabled. I'm sick of coming upon workstations with all this shit turned on and trying to figure out why they're running it on a desktop. */rant*
rather than sending jobs to india, lowering TCO is the way to go. as more companies--ie, ernie ball and now tivo--hail the benefits of open source the movement gains momenteum. eventually there will be a[nother] tech revolution......
Of course, it is rather disturbing since the many programmers that used to write those proprietary operating systems will be out of a job. Open source is basically slave labor, but the slaves have shit-eating grins on their face thinking they're in control. Do you think IBM really cares about free and open code? They've found a bunch of people who are willing to write software for free and give it away! What better arrangement could a company hope for!? No programmers needed, no benefits or salary to pay out, etc. Just fine someone dumb enough to type configure and then make install, configure it a bit and you're set. Then sell the whole thing as an embedded appliance for $30k a pop.
Well, in all fairness if you brought a Red Hat 6.2 box live on the network without patching it you'd be owned in about 10 minutes too. I think the moral of the story is to not build fresh boxes on a live network connected directly to the Internet for god's sake! Put it behind a NAT box at least to provide some minimal amount of protection. Firewalls are no longer optional on the Internet. If you choose not to use them it's like having unprotected sex with an AIDS patient. You may be lucky for awhile, but eventually you're going to catch something nasty.
Does anyone actually run SuSE Linux outside of Europe? If so, why? Red Hat is basically the Linux standard distro if you want to run commercial software, and Mandrake is simple to install and run for newbies. What does SuSE bring to the table?
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Not always. The benefit of building a machine yourself is not that it's cheaper, but that you can build using quality parts for an affordable price. I would imagine the motherboards and video cards in the average budget brand-name PC are crap compared to what you can buy OEM from a parts shop when building your own.
Also, no more Java. That wouldn't be a bad thing.
Did you buy AVG, because the free version is for non-commercial use only. You need to pay if you're using it in a business.
Nope, click on AVG Free Edition. It's only for North American users and is English language only with a basic interface, but it's fast, runs resident, has free automatic signature updates, etc. I've been using it for years now and it's great. Oh yea, and it's also only for non-commercial/home users. I'm glad if I'm stuck with Windows at least I don't have to get screwed annually on anti-virus signature fees. Anti-virus vendors have the biggest racket going on and I'm absolutely positive they produce many of the viruses that go around.
Actually I've found that consoles really suck for games. They are all basically the same thing with different graphics. PCs on the other hand have much more interesting games. You'd never see Battlefield 1942 on a console for example.
Aren't you glad you had the opportunity to deal with such juvenile spamcops? Who would've thought 8 years ago a small bit of annoyance with a rising mass-mail problem would fester into a steaming cauldron of 12 year old anti-spam crusaders? The earlier mail admins must've beat their toddlers everytime they received spam to instill such hatred of bulk-mail marketing.
(Oh I'm ever so anxiously awaiting their trademark comeback labelling me a spammer for disagreeing with them!)
Oh that's just fscking great. And to register a trusted mail server will no doubt cost $1000/year for a Verisign "trusted" certificate. Screw that. If you can do the same thing but make it open source then I'd say go for it, but if I have to be ass-raped by Verisign for another minute I'll give up on the entire god damn Internet.
You mean like TMDA? From their freshmeat description:
The Tagged Message Delivery Agent (TMDA) reduces the amount of SPAM/UCE (junkmail) you receive. It combines a "whitelist" (for known/trusted senders), a "blacklist" (for undesired senders), and a cryptographically-enhanced confirmation system (for unknown, but legitimate, senders).
The problem is, that's fine and dandy for most things, but are you sure every mailing list you're on is whitelisted? Did you remember to whitelist any companies you do business with? I'm sure their auto-responders aren't going to respond to your automatically generated cryptographically-enhanced confirmation system so you may not ever get that info about your eBay bid or the receipt for an online purchase. You may have whitelisted store.com but their confirmation mail comes from store.yahoo.com, etc. What do you do? It's an annoying problem. I say legalize the ability to punch known spammers in the nuts once per spam message. That should fix the problem.
Well, I always say, never do today what you could put off until next week. It's amazingly stupid that your university requires you to register on the first day of classes. Most of them let students register months in advance. Oh, you were too lazy to do that right?
Like the Niagra-Mohawk power grid outage? Oh right, that wasn't a terrorist attack. *wink*. FirstEnergy is just completely incompetent.... err.. ok I guess I can buy that.
There are companies that try to market penis pills on TV and radio for god's sake. You think there will be a lack of market for these virus spam services? As long as there is snake oil to sell there will be snake oil salesmen.
The only people that will complain about this are the people who routinely break the traffic laws. I know I wouldn't speed anymore if I knew it would result in an automatic ticket. Same as P2P really. It was all fun and games when you couldn't get in trouble for doing it. Then when the RIAA started suing people they wised up and started to realize that the chance of getting in trouble was too great to risk. I haven't used a P2P app in months. It's just not worth sacrificing a clean criminal record and my future employment opportunities to download some crappy music. I think the federal government should mandate these monitors in US cars by 2005 and provide funding for the roadside sensors.
The real problem you have with Slashdot is that there are people here that actually have a differing opinion from you and you feel insecure about that. I'm sure in your small clique of "friends" everyone wholeheartedly agrees with each other, but in the real world it both suprises and frightens you that people feel differently about subjects. So instead of sitting back and thinking about why that may be, you lash out and come up with half-ass remarks in a lame attempt to feel better about your viewpoint. At least that's what my therapist told me.
The trouble with 2001 is that it was extremely boring. I very rarely fall asleep during a movie, but that one took the cake. All I remember about that movie was classical music and that it made me fall asleep 5 minutes into it. Horrible, horrible film.
OK, but 4 different versions of Windows 2000 alone. Red Hat has 4 as well.. Enterprise WS, ES, AS, and basic.
What's your point? I wasn't saying the amount of Linux distributions was any better. FreeBSD or OpenBSD would be better examples of operating systems that have stood firm.
Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Data Center, Windows XP Home, Windows XP Professional, Windows NT 4.0 Server, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows 98SE are all still in wide use. In fact, I've yet to see anyone running Windows 2003 Server, especially around work, since none of our software is certified for anything but Windows 2000 (SP 3 at that). We only got rid of the last NT server in our group last fall after one of our vendors finally certified their product for Windows 2000. I would imagine they'll support Windows 2003 Server sometime in 2005.
So? What's MTV got to do with music? Why would the RIAA care if you timeshifted Jackass or Beavis and Butthead reruns (if they even show it anymore).
No problem. Rip them all to DivX and post them on Kazaa. Since the BBC will also distribute them on their website it'll be perfectly legal.
(well, no, but we can pretend it is and I'm too cheap to buy Monty Python DVDs).
That's what I tried telling those RIAA bastards but they won't believe me. Putting my CD backups on Kazaa was simply the safest backup investment I could've ever made. Then they came along and labelled me a pirate! A pirate!? I'm just trying to backup my valuable data! Where better than in a distributed format strewn all across the Internet? Even if the entire United States were to blow up I could still retrieve my data from China! Please RIAA, think of the backups.
I wouldn't really call gamers high bandwidth users. Most online games don't use that much bandwidth. Latency is far more important from what I've seen. The actual bandwidth needed is probably under 128Kbps for a very good reliable connection. That's basically how much grandma uses browsing the web and downloading pictures of the grandkids.
Look, you don't have to be a pretentious dick about it. Worms can hit any platform including your relatively secure operating systems. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and frankly, major Linux distributions have more than their fair share of major security vulnerabilities. The only saving grace of Linux is that it's relatively obscure OS compared to other major operating systems like Windows or MacOS. I count 41 security vulnerabilities in Red Hat 9 alone since late March. Many of those could've been exploited by a worm or malicious trojan and spread if as many people used Linux as they do Windows.
So get off your high horse and realize that every one of those operating systems you're pointing out was affected by major security vulnerabilities in the last year. Even OpenBSD, that bastion of secure operating systems, had a MAJOR remote root exploit in the default install (OpenSSH). Nobody is immune to bad programming and just bad luck. Shit happens, that's why there are patches. The problem is lazy incompetent system administration and not patching systems when they become available.
*rant* And for Christ's sake people, SHUT OFF DAEMONS YOU DON'T USE! Does your Solaris box REALLY need to be running ANY of that shit in /etc/inetd.conf that comes enabled by default? The answer is NO. Solaris works just peachy with everything in inetd.conf disabled, RPC disabled, and practically every other daemon started in the init scripts disabled. I'm sick of coming upon workstations with all this shit turned on and trying to figure out why they're running it on a desktop. */rant*
Of course, it is rather disturbing since the many programmers that used to write those proprietary operating systems will be out of a job. Open source is basically slave labor, but the slaves have shit-eating grins on their face thinking they're in control. Do you think IBM really cares about free and open code? They've found a bunch of people who are willing to write software for free and give it away! What better arrangement could a company hope for!? No programmers needed, no benefits or salary to pay out, etc. Just fine someone dumb enough to type configure and then make install, configure it a bit and you're set. Then sell the whole thing as an embedded appliance for $30k a pop.
Well, in all fairness if you brought a Red Hat 6.2 box live on the network without patching it you'd be owned in about 10 minutes too. I think the moral of the story is to not build fresh boxes on a live network connected directly to the Internet for god's sake! Put it behind a NAT box at least to provide some minimal amount of protection. Firewalls are no longer optional on the Internet. If you choose not to use them it's like having unprotected sex with an AIDS patient. You may be lucky for awhile, but eventually you're going to catch something nasty.
Does anyone actually run SuSE Linux outside of Europe? If so, why? Red Hat is basically the Linux standard distro if you want to run commercial software, and Mandrake is simple to install and run for newbies. What does SuSE bring to the table?