For example, can your version control software tell you what text changed between two revisions of Word documents?
Mine can. We're using TortoiseSVN on top of Subversion (obviously), and it'll do diffs between different revisions of Word documents, by loading them both into Word and turning on the Track Changes functionality.
That said, I'm not aware of it working on anything other than Word or text. TortoiseMerge sucks for UTF16 text, for example.
I've been running non-Admin on my Windows XP box (at home) and my Windows 2003 box (at work) for the last several months; I'm writing C++, C# and ASP.NET applications, and I rarely need admin rights.
This is by choice: our IT bods will, by default, install a dev image allowing me local admin privileges. I asked specifically for them not to do this when they re-installed my PC.
On XP at home, I use fast-user-switching for those occasions where I need to install something as Admin; on 2003 at work, I use RDP to connect to the same machine with admin rights. Admittedly, I still have to do this more than I'd like (maybe once a day, to restart a service or something), and I've had to relax permissions on small parts of the filesystem and registry, etc., but the situation's not nearly as bad as people think.
Now, I'm only a developer on Windows, rather than a developer of Windows, but it's working well for me.
Right now, I'm looking to upgrade my gaming rig to PCI-E, and I'm confused. nVidia seem to have about 50 different chipsets available, all with numbers that look vaguely the same, all with suffixes that look vaguely the same, all available on different cards, from different manufacturers, with different amounts of RAM.
ATI are getting to be just as bad. So, my question: what should I be looking for when I'm trying to decide between BFG or Leadtek or Asus or whatever?
I don't even know whether I want SLI! Someone enlighten me, please.
Correct. To clarify, Windows 2003 comes in Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter and Web editions. There is no Professional edition. There are Windows 2003 R2 versions of Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter.
If your user account was previously in the Administrators group, then Windows will, by default, have made you the owner of any files/directories/registry keys that you created with that account.
This behaviour is controlled by the "System objects: Default owner for objects created by members of the Administrators group" setting, which you'll find in secpol.msc, under Security Settings -> Local Policies -> Security Options.
On Windows XP, this defaults to "Object creator". On Windows 2003, it defaults to "Administrators group".
I've been running as LUA at work for a month or so now, and I just reinstalled my home machine, setting my account up as LUA. Fast User Switching makes it easy to flip over to the admin account to install things.
Most things work fine w/o admin privileges. Of the applications I can't live without, Steam is the only one that won't work under LUA. I had to fix it by granting myself full control over C:\Program Files\Steam.
Even if a computer system isn't connected to the Internet, you can guarantee that -- if it's connected to any kind of network infrastructure -- some idiot is going to jack their laptop into it, or plug a USB key into one of the PCs.
This is how viruses can get onto supposedly 'private' networks.
It takes a significant amount of effort from the IT guys to harden a system against this -- managed switches, Windows group policy. They're guaranteed to forget something.
The right thing to do is to disable the AV updates over the Internet, and use internal update servers (assuming that your AV solution supports it).
This means that you can validate the AV software on a test rig before it ends up on mission-critical production kit.
In the UK, if your 'A' level results are marginal, you might have to apply to a different university than the one you originally applied for. It's called 'clearing'.
Knowing your results earlier allows you to jump straight into the clearing system, possibly allowing you to grab a place at a better university than if you'd waited until Monday.
Now, for those slow on the uptake, what does a Microsoft site license do? Yup, it grants (in exchange for money) a more liberal right to copy than that otherwise offered by copyright law.
Forget site licenses. I have here in front of me a shiny new box of Visual Studio.NET.
I quote (from eula.txt):
"Microsoft grants to you as an individual, a personal, nonexclusive license to use the Software, and to make and use copies of the Software for the purposes of designing, developing, testing, and demonstrating your software product(s), provided that you are the only individual using the Software."
So I can make as many copies as I want, as long as I'm the only one using it.
No. Dave Cutler, who was lead developer for NT, was previously one of the lead developers for VMS.
I don't think that MS actually took any of the source code from VMS for NT, however.
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Mine can. We're using TortoiseSVN on top of Subversion (obviously), and it'll do diffs between different revisions of Word documents, by loading them both into Word and turning on the Track Changes functionality.
That said, I'm not aware of it working on anything other than Word or text. TortoiseMerge sucks for UTF16 text, for example.
I've been running non-Admin on my Windows XP box (at home) and my Windows 2003 box (at work) for the last several months; I'm writing C++, C# and ASP.NET applications, and I rarely need admin rights.
This is by choice: our IT bods will, by default, install a dev image allowing me local admin privileges. I asked specifically for them not to do this when they re-installed my PC.
On XP at home, I use fast-user-switching for those occasions where I need to install something as Admin; on 2003 at work, I use RDP to connect to the same machine with admin rights. Admittedly, I still have to do this more than I'd like (maybe once a day, to restart a service or something), and I've had to relax permissions on small parts of the filesystem and registry, etc., but the situation's not nearly as bad as people think.
Now, I'm only a developer on Windows, rather than a developer of Windows, but it's working well for me.
Right now, I'm looking to upgrade my gaming rig to PCI-E, and I'm confused. nVidia seem to have about 50 different chipsets available, all with numbers that look vaguely the same, all with suffixes that look vaguely the same, all available on different cards, from different manufacturers, with different amounts of RAM.
ATI are getting to be just as bad. So, my question: what should I be looking for when I'm trying to decide between BFG or Leadtek or Asus or whatever?
I don't even know whether I want SLI! Someone enlighten me, please.
Correct. To clarify, Windows 2003 comes in Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter and Web editions. There is no Professional edition. There are Windows 2003 R2 versions of Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter.
See the feature comparison page for more info.
I'm not entirely sure why MS chose to call it R2, rather than Windows 2005, but that's marketing for you.
My Garmin Etrex Vista works fine on the plane. I find it useful in terms of things like: "Oh, that's where Iceland is!"
Throw a hundred AIs into the air and let them all be slaughtered if necessary. Who cares? Make 'em kamikaze if you like.
We have those already. They're called Surface to Air Missiles.
If your user account was previously in the Administrators group, then Windows will, by default, have made you the owner of any files/directories/registry keys that you created with that account.
This behaviour is controlled by the "System objects: Default owner for objects created by members of the Administrators group" setting, which you'll find in secpol.msc, under Security Settings -> Local Policies -> Security Options.
On Windows XP, this defaults to "Object creator". On Windows 2003, it defaults to "Administrators group".
See Aaron Margosis' blog for more information about this setting.
I've been running as LUA at work for a month or so now, and I just reinstalled my home machine, setting my account up as LUA. Fast User Switching makes it easy to flip over to the admin account to install things.
Most things work fine w/o admin privileges. Of the applications I can't live without, Steam is the only one that won't work under LUA. I had to fix it by granting myself full control over C:\Program Files\Steam.
Even if a computer system isn't connected to the Internet, you can guarantee that -- if it's connected to any kind of network infrastructure -- some idiot is going to jack their laptop into it, or plug a USB key into one of the PCs.
This is how viruses can get onto supposedly 'private' networks.
It takes a significant amount of effort from the IT guys to harden a system against this -- managed switches, Windows group policy. They're guaranteed to forget something.
The right thing to do is to disable the AV updates over the Internet, and use internal update servers (assuming that your AV solution supports it).
This means that you can validate the AV software on a test rig before it ends up on mission-critical production kit.
My understanding is that it was labelled Wireless G because the 802.11g specification wasn't finished yet.
So, until the specification was finished (and Linksys upgraded their firmware to implement the final version), they had to avoid calling it 802.11g.
In the UK, if your 'A' level results are marginal, you might have to apply to a different university than the one you originally applied for. It's called 'clearing'.
Knowing your results earlier allows you to jump straight into the clearing system, possibly allowing you to grab a place at a better university than if you'd waited until Monday.
Sure Beagle 2 wins the prize for extreme close-up of the Mars surface?
I don't think it could have got much more up-close-and-personal if they'd tried.
Now, for those slow on the uptake, what does a Microsoft site license do? Yup, it grants (in exchange for money) a more liberal right to copy than that otherwise offered by copyright law. Forget site licenses. I have here in front of me a shiny new box of Visual Studio.NET. I quote (from eula.txt): "Microsoft grants to you as an individual, a personal, nonexclusive license to use the Software, and to make and use copies of the Software for the purposes of designing, developing, testing, and demonstrating your software product(s), provided that you are the only individual using the Software." So I can make as many copies as I want, as long as I'm the only one using it.
No. Dave Cutler, who was lead developer for NT, was previously one of the lead developers for VMS. I don't think that MS actually took any of the source code from VMS for NT, however.