Who, in his/hers right mind bought a set/projector/whatever which is HDTV compatible (and I don't mean 480p, I mean atleast 720p and above) and didn't check for DVI with HDCP or HDMI ?
Well gee, Mr. Wizard, when I bought my 65" HDTV in 1998, they didn't have that:D
And to be honest, I'm completely happy with its 9" projectors and component input. I see no need to "upgrade" (using the term loosely).
What happened to the thing about complying with laws?
As far as I can tell, that's exactly what they're doing in both cases.
They are complying with Chinese law in the first case (just like, oh, I don't know... all the other US companies that do manufacturing there... but we won't talk about that, otherwise you wouldn't be able to buy cheap goods here in the US), and in the second case they are preventing our own government from breaking US law.
You don't need a "Security Hole" for a virus when a user actively downloads and executes something from their email. Or clicks "I agree" without reading a EULA.
Now... user-level file permissions DO help with this (at they very least they minimize the results), don't get me wrong, but you could have the same thing with a *nix/mac user.
My first knee-jerk reaction/thought was the same as most people here: "They make a lousy OS, now they want us to pay for 'Protection'".
In reality, that's not exactly the case. While there are things that exploit Windoze/IE/Outlook security holes, there's a whole lot more things that are just plain old viruses and trojans that people proactively download, execute, and install all on their own. MS (eventually) patches for the former, and the anti-virus products help with the latter.
We've always had these (the viruses), and there's always been virus scanning solftware to combat them. I'm under the opinion that no matter what you do, you're always going to have people who are plenty capable of mucking up their computer all on their own.
The only real problem here is the question of whether you can trust MS not not get confued along the way and focus more on the bandage rather than the cure. What I mean by this is that if they're offering a $50/yr bandage and free cures (patches)... which is going to get more attention? I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any stretch of the imagination but given the company's history it's just not hard to make that connection.
That is exactly the first thing that popped into my head when I read the headline.
Apparently, it's ok to grant them preferred trading status so we can all get cheap stuff that's manufactured there (conveniently forgetting all the bad things), but it's not ok to obey their laws inside their country to do business with their people.
This is just plain hypocracy from our gov't (yea, yeah, I know... big surprise there).
My webhosting company supplies it, including SSL support.
As for needing to switch it every five minutes... I see your point, but no offense, that would put you in a very small group of people.
Most people are not changing networks every five minutes (or even every hour) and probably don't see having to make two menu choices anoying.
The obvious solution is to put a pull-down on the "compose message" pane, but I've never looked at the code so I'm not sure how the currently selected SMTP server is referenced or how hard it would be to change on the fly via such a menu.
Many people who use multiple ISPs have at least one ISP that has a secure SMTP server that requires a login and pass, which can be used from anywhere.
If you don't, you can add multiple SMTP servers in thunderbird 1.5 to a single account. Once you do this, you can select the server you want to use from a dropdown that will now appear under "Tools -> Account Settings" on the first, main panel. You can even do this once you've started to compose a message (in the case you forgot to do it beforehand).
If one regularly sported a tinfoil hat (I don't, but I have to say they are starting to look attractive...), you might think that this is EXACTLY what the president wanted.
Blow a stupid little thing out of proportion (in the media and general public) that really has no impact except to make people *manually set a clock back or forward* (Much like how I currently do with our "real" clocks in the house) to distract people from looking at the POS legislation that's getting passed under their noses.
- Roach
Re:Hmm...
on
VoIP Security
·
· Score: 2, Informative
" In the case of a business, I think it would be a good idea to keep at least one POTS line, to prevent a total outage of phone service. VOIP would be very useful in the business world to keep down the cost of long distance calls, and the quality is good enough."
It is good enough, and that's exactly what we do. I have a VoIP "line" from AT&T at our business for outgoing long distance, plugged right into our phone system. It saves us probably $200 - $300 a month in long distance (You should see what business LD costs - it's ridiculous).
- Brian Roach
POTS is also vulnerable
on
VoIP Security
·
· Score: 2, Informative
If you have a set of aligator clips and a phone. Or a set of diaganol cutters (DoS attack).
I mean, really... it's MUCH easier to access any of the copper lines strung all over than hacking anyone's VoIP connection.
This is even more depressing when you consider that more than ever before in our history we have the ability to "self-publish" - via the internet.
Post to a newsgroup/forum/discussion list. Start a blog. Build your own website.
All of these options are within reach of more people than a printing press has ever been. Yet our kids aren't taught enough to realize how important this is.
We run a motorcycle performance shop and have a chassis dynomometer. The dyno is about 10 years old now, and is still running off the orginal 486 that came with it. This thing gets covered in dust, soot, etc. We blow it out about once a month (if we remember) with air... and it merrily chugs along as it always has. The only casualty in it in the last 10 years has been a floppy drive - even the original power supply is still in it.
These things really are hard to kill unless you get them wet.
I remember having so many of them... the battle cruiser, the city, The black and white mechanical knights with horses (very cool, magnets and ball bearings for limb sockets) and one of the last was the air-powered "tube monorail" thing.
You could also interchange all the parts from the various sets and vehicles.
I worked for AOL for 8 years... secureID is easy, and keeps the clueless billing reps (now in india I believe) from giving away your account to social engineering "phishers".
The display on the SecureID is just numbers, synced to the auth server. The average user should have no problem entering 8 numbers when prompted.
Let's pretend for a moment that people somehow didn't get to the second line of the article which mentions how Canada has faster Broadband while being larger and less populated than the US...
*Urban Areas* in the US don't have the kind of Broadband these other countries enjoy. If size/density was the problem, we'd see densly populated, urban areas with 10Mbit service, while our sparsly populated, rural areas would fall behind.
Instead, we have lousy service in the urban areas, and non-existant service in the rurals.
What's funny is... you're better off living somewhere in-beteen the two. When I lived in the DC metro area (until early 2003), both Comcast and Cox oversold their networks, badly managed them, and the service was horrible - multi-hour outages and 15 - 20% packet loss on a regular basis were the norm. Flash-forward to today where I live in Dover, DE. Comcast rocks here. Fast, reliable... because less people use it (less population, lower mean income, etc). Same bad management to be sure, just not enough users to cripple the network on a regular basis.
No... it means that a foreign citizen that can point out geographic points in a country 4000 miles away and 50 times the size of the one they live in is slighly more enlightened that the dolt who can't tell you what ocean laps up against the shore of the one he lives in.
Beyond that, what incentive would someone in Germany have to know where Ohio is? Being from Ohio, I can state with some authority that there is little, if any.
Unless you have a specific reason for knowing... basic world geography is probably all you can be expected to know. The world is a big place. I can point out most large Euro nations on a map, and probably know the capitals (and generally where they are). THe only knowledge I have beyond that is from travelling.
But I sure as hell know where all 50 states are, and the major bodies of water in my own country.
So while that's not as extreme as not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is... Americans aren't the only geographically-challenged people out there.
There's only two oceans that lap up against US shores... you'd think, perhaps, the names wouldn't be alien to the average US citizen.
Beyond that... I'm also from Ohio. I wouldn't expect anyone outside the US to know where it is:)
Most Euro countries aren't 3000 x 1500 miles in size, made up of 48 separate states. Can you point out something other than London on a map of England? It's only the size of VA.
One of the ones that I thought would work was saying I live about 80 miles north of the border between North Dakota and Montana. However, a lot of people still had no idea where I was talking about
That's because most of us simply refer to that area of the country as, "The big flat part in the middle."
(Er, yes, I know Montana isn't flat... great skiing there... but as you've found, that's really irrelivent here).
I don't know how many people are reading this thread anymore, but it hit very close to home with me.
I didn't go to college. Why? Because (high) school bored the hell out of me, and I was young enough to decide that I could make it without it.
And I did... I'm smart, but more importantly I enjoy learning. I read, I studied... because I enjoyed learning. The reason high school bored me was because I wasn't learning anything I hadn't already learned on my own.
SO... I did the programming thing for 10 years. I starting writing code at 10 years old on a VIC20, so naturally I thought that's what I would be all my life.
Then I figured out it sucked. Not the programming part exactly, but doing it all day every day, for someone else. And it just wasn't all that rewarding.
Now... I'm a motorcycle mechanic. I work at a performance shop that specializes in road racing. I build motors, fix crashed bikes, a number of other things. I also race. I love my life. Better yet, I enjoy my life, and live it.
After working as a SysAdmin and then Software Engineer through the dot-com boom... I got burned out, and was generally just not happy. It got to the point where I didn't even LIKE writing code.
In Nov of '00 I woke up one morning and wrote my letter of resignation. I sold my house, moved to an area with a low cost of living, and now am a motorcycle mechanic.
I love my job, and actually like going to work in the morning. I also have time to actually enjoy life, instead of working all the time. Oh, and nobody pages you at 3am because they need an oil change:) I even enjoy wiriting code again, as a hobby.
I won't get rich doing this, nor will I ever have stock options again... but in the last few years I figured out there's SO much more to life than that.
I have 3 Tivos (1 original that's now 4 years old, and 2 series2) and have never had a problem with heat.
If you sandwitch it in a cabinet in with a bunch of stuff, or (yes, people do this) put them on top of your receiver/amplifier... well, they're going to overheat.
But so will anything. Before installing a couple small fans into the cabinet where everything lives, my Toshiba pro-scan DVD would overheat and refuse to play because it didn't have enough room to "breathe" (the shelf above it is too close).
Slashdot Mirror
Who, in his/hers right mind bought a set/projector/whatever which is HDTV compatible (and I don't mean 480p, I mean atleast 720p and above) and didn't check for DVI with HDCP or HDMI ?
:D
Well gee, Mr. Wizard, when I bought my 65" HDTV in 1998, they didn't have that
And to be honest, I'm completely happy with its 9" projectors and component input. I see no need to "upgrade" (using the term loosely).
- Roach
What happened to the thing about complying with laws?
... all the other US companies that do manufacturing there ... but we won't talk about that, otherwise you wouldn't be able to buy cheap goods here in the US), and in the second case they are preventing our own government from breaking US law.
As far as I can tell, that's exactly what they're doing in both cases.
They are complying with Chinese law in the first case (just like, oh, I don't know
- Brian Roach
You don't need a "Security Hole" for a virus when a user actively downloads and executes something from their email. Or clicks "I agree" without reading a EULA.
Now
- Roach
My first knee-jerk reaction/thought was the same as most people here: "They make a lousy OS, now they want us to pay for 'Protection'".
... which is going to get more attention? I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any stretch of the imagination but given the company's history it's just not hard to make that connection.
In reality, that's not exactly the case. While there are things that exploit Windoze/IE/Outlook security holes, there's a whole lot more things that are just plain old viruses and trojans that people proactively download, execute, and install all on their own. MS (eventually) patches for the former, and the anti-virus products help with the latter.
We've always had these (the viruses), and there's always been virus scanning solftware to combat them. I'm under the opinion that no matter what you do, you're always going to have people who are plenty capable of mucking up their computer all on their own.
The only real problem here is the question of whether you can trust MS not not get confued along the way and focus more on the bandage rather than the cure. What I mean by this is that if they're offering a $50/yr bandage and free cures (patches)
- Brian Roach
That is exactly the first thing that popped into my head when I read the headline.
Apparently, it's ok to grant them preferred trading status so we can all get cheap stuff that's manufactured there (conveniently forgetting all the bad things), but it's not ok to obey their laws inside their country to do business with their people.
This is just plain hypocracy from our gov't (yea, yeah, I know
- Brian Roach
My webhosting company supplies it, including SSL support.
... I see your point, but no offense, that would put you in a very small group of people.
As for needing to switch it every five minutes
Most people are not changing networks every five minutes (or even every hour) and probably don't see having to make two menu choices anoying.
The obvious solution is to put a pull-down on the "compose message" pane, but I've never looked at the code so I'm not sure how the currently selected SMTP server is referenced or how hard it would be to change on the fly via such a menu.
- Roach
Many people who use multiple ISPs have at least one ISP that has a secure SMTP server that requires a login and pass, which can be used from anywhere.
If you don't, you can add multiple SMTP servers in thunderbird 1.5 to a single account. Once you do this, you can select the server you want to use from a dropdown that will now appear under "Tools -> Account Settings" on the first, main panel. You can even do this once you've started to compose a message (in the case you forgot to do it beforehand).
- Roach
If one regularly sported a tinfoil hat (I don't, but I have to say they are starting to look attractive...), you might think that this is EXACTLY what the president wanted.
Blow a stupid little thing out of proportion (in the media and general public) that really has no impact except to make people *manually set a clock back or forward* (Much like how I currently do with our "real" clocks in the house) to distract people from looking at the POS legislation that's getting passed under their noses.
- Roach
" In the case of a business, I think it would be a good idea to keep at least one POTS line, to prevent a total outage of phone service. VOIP would be very useful in the business world to keep down the cost of long distance calls, and the quality is good enough."
It is good enough, and that's exactly what we do. I have a VoIP "line" from AT&T at our business for outgoing long distance, plugged right into our phone system. It saves us probably $200 - $300 a month in long distance (You should see what business LD costs - it's ridiculous).
- Brian Roach
If you have a set of aligator clips and a phone. Or a set of diaganol cutters (DoS attack).
I mean, really
- Brian Roach
Really. The article states that $144k was raised by fans (with $3m in commitments from corperations).
... that's only 144k fans.
.. "Alf")
Even if the average contribution was $1 (which I'm sure was actually higher)
You could probably get better viewership and advertising dollars re-running ST:TNG (Or say
- Brian Roach
This is even more depressing when you consider that more than ever before in our history we have the ability to "self-publish" - via the internet.
Post to a newsgroup/forum/discussion list. Start a blog. Build your own website.
All of these options are within reach of more people than a printing press has ever been. Yet our kids aren't taught enough to realize how important this is.
- Brian Roach
Right on target here.
... and it merrily chugs along as it always has. The only casualty in it in the last 10 years has been a floppy drive - even the original power supply is still in it.
We run a motorcycle performance shop and have a chassis dynomometer. The dyno is about 10 years old now, and is still running off the orginal 486 that came with it. This thing gets covered in dust, soot, etc. We blow it out about once a month (if we remember) with air
These things really are hard to kill unless you get them wet.
- Roach
Talk about memories. I remember the day I got the 16K expansion catridge - I was a GOD!
Had the vic modem as well
- Roach
Micronauts! Not just legs that bent ... they FIRED MISSLES. Little choking hazzard ones all the way up to big dart-gun size.
...
... the battle cruiser, the city, The black and white mechanical knights with horses (very cool, magnets and ball bearings for limb sockets) and one of the last was the air-powered "tube monorail" thing.
A quick google search brought up
http://www.micro-outpost.com/
This was by far, my favorite childhood toy(s).
I remember having so many of them
You could also interchange all the parts from the various sets and vehicles.
- Roach
I worked for AOL for 8 years ... secureID is easy, and keeps the clueless billing reps (now in india I believe) from giving away your account to social engineering "phishers".
The display on the SecureID is just numbers, synced to the auth server. The average user should have no problem entering 8 numbers when prompted.
- Roach
http://www.speedwerks.com
Erm
If just ONCE the tax dollar lottery went my way, I'd be a pretty happy camper.
- Roach
Let's pretend for a moment that people somehow didn't get to the second line of the article which mentions how Canada has faster Broadband while being larger and less populated than the US ...
... you're better off living somewhere in-beteen the two. When I lived in the DC metro area (until early 2003), both Comcast and Cox oversold their networks, badly managed them, and the service was horrible - multi-hour outages and 15 - 20% packet loss on a regular basis were the norm. Flash-forward to today where I live in Dover, DE. Comcast rocks here. Fast, reliable ... because less people use it (less population, lower mean income, etc). Same bad management to be sure, just not enough users to cripple the network on a regular basis.
*Urban Areas* in the US don't have the kind of Broadband these other countries enjoy. If size/density was the problem, we'd see densly populated, urban areas with 10Mbit service, while our sparsly populated, rural areas would fall behind.
Instead, we have lousy service in the urban areas, and non-existant service in the rurals.
What's funny is
- Brian Roach
No
Beyond that, what incentive would someone in Germany have to know where Ohio is? Being from Ohio, I can state with some authority that there is little, if any.
Unless you have a specific reason for knowing
But I sure as hell know where all 50 states are, and the major bodies of water in my own country.
- Roach
I was speaking of only the continental US, hense the "made up of 48 states" statement.
If they can't figure out where the Pacific ocean is, I'm not even going to contemplate where they think Alaska is located.
- Roach
So while that's not as extreme as not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is... Americans aren't the only geographically-challenged people out there.
... you'd think, perhaps, the names wouldn't be alien to the average US citizen.
... I'm also from Ohio. I wouldn't expect anyone outside the US to know where it is :)
There's only two oceans that lap up against US shores
Beyond that
Most Euro countries aren't 3000 x 1500 miles in size, made up of 48 separate states. Can you point out something other than London on a map of England? It's only the size of VA.
- Roach
One of the ones that I thought would work was saying I live about 80 miles north of the border between North Dakota and Montana. However, a lot of people still had no idea where I was talking about
... great skiing there ... but as you've found, that's really irrelivent here).
That's because most of us simply refer to that area of the country as, "The big flat part in the middle."
(Er, yes, I know Montana isn't flat
- Roach
I don't know how many people are reading this thread anymore, but it hit very close to home with me.
... I'm smart, but more importantly I enjoy learning. I read, I studied ... because I enjoyed learning. The reason high school bored me was because I wasn't learning anything I hadn't already learned on my own.
... I did the programming thing for 10 years. I starting writing code at 10 years old on a VIC20, so naturally I thought that's what I would be all my life.
... I'm a motorcycle mechanic. I work at a performance shop that specializes in road racing. I build motors, fix crashed bikes, a number of other things. I also race. I love my life. Better yet, I enjoy my life, and live it.
I didn't go to college. Why? Because (high) school bored the hell out of me, and I was young enough to decide that I could make it without it.
And I did
SO
Then I figured out it sucked. Not the programming part exactly, but doing it all day every day, for someone else. And it just wasn't all that rewarding.
Now
- Brian Roach
After working as a SysAdmin and then Software Engineer through the dot-com boom ... I got burned out, and was generally just not happy. It got to the point where I didn't even LIKE writing code.
:) I even enjoy wiriting code again, as a hobby.
... but in the last few years I figured out there's SO much more to life than that.
In Nov of '00 I woke up one morning and wrote my letter of resignation. I sold my house, moved to an area with a low cost of living, and now am a motorcycle mechanic.
I love my job, and actually like going to work in the morning. I also have time to actually enjoy life, instead of working all the time. Oh, and nobody pages you at 3am because they need an oil change
I won't get rich doing this, nor will I ever have stock options again
- Roach
Totally agree on the enclosure issue.
I have 3 Tivos (1 original that's now 4 years old, and 2 series2) and have never had a problem with heat.
If you sandwitch it in a cabinet in with a bunch of stuff, or (yes, people do this) put them on top of your receiver/amplifier
But so will anything. Before installing a couple small fans into the cabinet where everything lives, my Toshiba pro-scan DVD would overheat and refuse to play because it didn't have enough room to "breathe" (the shelf above it is too close).
- Brian Roach