Let's pause and think about this for a mo
on
$5 Social Wi-Fi Router
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Where do I need net access the most?
At home - OK, covered.
In the car - Not often, but when I do I use cell phone GPRS via bluetooth to a laptop or PDA. Do I really want to be driving around to find a Fon hotspot (fuel costs and inconvenience) and how many will be on the side of motorways and main roads anyway?
At airports - Yeah, right, the paid wifi service providers are really gonna let this happen. Stand by for clause changes in all shop leases to prevent them having a Fon router.
At railway stations - See above.
When I am walking through a shopping centre - Well, maybe (but not very often), but see airports.
When I am walking through the suburbs - What, carrying a laptop or PDA out in the open? OK, maybe (but not often)
Pubs and restaurants? Hmm - let's see... "...well Mr (or Ms) landlord; you can have a 'free-ish' router in return for a service elsewhere that might be handy to you once in a while (or will give you a small kickback) - OR you can spend some money on a 'proper' system with controlled access and we'll maintain it for you and split the profits..."
So is Fon going to blanket cover massive swathes of the globe - nah, you'll end up with lots of little clusters and big gaps inbetween.
Nice idea, happy to see it take off, but am very sceptical.
Trying to bid for an item the other day, I made a few tentative bids during the last 5 minutes and someone was manually bidding slightly higher every time so I held back a 'confirm your bid' page for my maximum amount and submitted it 10 seconds before the auction ended. Guess what - a lovely ebay message that 'an error has occurred' and by the time I had gone back to the item page and re-keyed the bid the auction had ended. I queried this with ebay and got a multi-page 'cut-and-paste' job that basically told me 'like we care'.
Hi tech phones eh? Hmm..I can see it now: my home phone having an 8 megapixel camera so I can lift it up and take a picture of the postman as he drops off my mail, or maybe an artistic one of the shelf on the wall in the hallway.
Have to agree - it's goddamn awful. The font is too thin, especially when reversed. My eyes ain't what they used to be and diabetes doesn't help, but the new font just looks wrong - as if someone is going to give it a tweak at any moment and put the proper one in.
Your argument would hold more water if the only code being executed was:
FPSAT;Fly Plane Safely All the Time
AND FPSAT was a microcode instruction AND the CPU contained the AI of a perfect pilot AND it had no bugs AND it was not likely to be affected by power glitches or other external influences.
Have to do a 'me too' on that - the font is too harsh and not easy on the eyes. The overall 'look and feel' is hard-edged too - needs some roundedness.
The only saving grace is that Adblock Plus still works!
..and the bit where Tweedle Dum (or was it Tweedle Dee?) accidentally cut off Bruce Dern's leg while trying to repair it..oh and the version where Kahn says "No hard feelings, Kirk - you were just doing your job"
Amen to all that - I have an Orange (UK) SmartPhone running Micro$oft's OS and some of the most fundamental tasks require so many menu clicks it's unbelievable:
Set the alarm: Start, 4 (settings), 9 (more), 3 (Date and Time), 4 x Scroll, Enter.
Compare this to my previous phone: 'Settings' button, Date and Time, Enter.
My old phone was also sensible enough to allow opt-out days on alarms so you could have a recurrent wake up for work days that didn't operate at weekends - now I get hit with a 6.30 alarm on Saturday and Sunday unless I remember to turn it off - and then I have to remember to turn it on again on Sunday night or be late for work!
On one occasion I used my old phone to record someone threatening me in the street (I didn't need to use it as the incident calmed down) all I had to do was covertly hold down one button. This is impossible on the new phone as you have to look at and navigate the menus:
Start...9 (More)...5 (Voice notes)...Record
Mind you, my new phone could have also recorded video of the incident:
Click camera button...Menu...Capture mode....2 (Video)...Capture
Not exactly subtle and the act of me staring and operating my phone during such a tese moment would probably have got me clobbered! In any case, the last time I tried to record some video for fun, the phone refused ('Insufficient memory') and I had to reboot it to free some RAM for the OS. Picture the scene..
Click...click...click...click...[Error]...Oh, wait Mr Thug, I need to reboot my phone, can you hang on for about 2 minutes and bear with me as I may need to take out the battery if the reboot hangs.
There was some speculation that Nokia are (or were considering) relaunching one of their more basic models (the 6310i) due to popular demand.
I understand that the technology involves covering the object with life-size photos of Osama Bin Laden, upon which the object disappears and can't be traced by anyone.
The only side-effect is that audio and video recordings of the object can occasionally be heard in Al Jazeera offices.
About 5 years ago, I was walking back to the station having been at an IT conference and exhibition in Manchester (UK) and learned from the guy ahead of me (who was on his phone and talking to a colleague beside hin too) that a major UK system reseller was about to go bust. Teh two ahead of me were discussing whether it would be worth making a bid for the liquidated company.
Mind you, I also once sat opposite a lawyer on a train who had case notes and witness statements spread across the table - interesting read, it was!
I REALLY have more important things to fret about than this - for example:
Why do supermarkets keep relocating the stock in different parts of the store?
Why is the first biscuit in a pack always broken - and in which case why don't the manufacturers just leave it out?
Why when I see "New Improved" on a product do I just *know* it will be worse than the previous one?
Why when a compiler *knows* there is a semicolon missing from the end of line 67 doesn't it just damn well add one?
Parma ham is hung and slowly matured unpacked for months in dry caves in Italian mountains, yet when you buy it from the deli it says on the pack 'eat within three days' - WTF?
L3K
PS: Just before you actually give any answers to any of these - think about it - you will just look very very sad!
If you consider the users to be morons and know that they will fail to follow security advice than you plan for this. You can implement training to 'un-moron' them to a degree, but it is not wise to consider that the post-training person will do what they have been told all of the time.
*ANYONE* in any support or consultancy role that starts to say to themselves (about the users) "You'd think that they would/wouldn't...." (eg: You'd think that they would know not to login as someone else") is totally missing the point about human behaviour and is not approaching the problem or their role in the correct way.
Me too - used to work for Link-Miles in the UK in the visuals dept, but I left around the time we were replacing multi-processor 286 boards with 386-based ones!
There was a lot of work going on with ASIC design and also some playing with SGI kit for software simulation but the writing was on the wall that 'simple' off-the-peg kit could do better than we were doing with banks of CPU boards and at a cost far cheaper than 'specialist' stuff like SGI and MicroVAX.
Have to admit that I am a bit of a Nagios fan - it's monitoring servers (Windows and Linus) and broadband links on 30 sites for me.
I'd just like to disagree with your comment that Nagios can get arduous to setup if you're looking at a lot of servers - in reality once you have found a configuration and set of monitoring parameters that suits you, adding more servers becomes a simple cut/paste + edit job to create new definitions for the servers - not so bad.
I daresay Nagios is OTT for your app as you might as well have someone walk roudn and check the machines! Nevertheless, have another go with it as once you get over the steep part of the learning curve it gets better.
My installation is monitoring 30 sites; that;s: 30 ADSL routers, 15 Win2K servers and 5 Linux boxes and once the basics are in place (which means getting to grips with the interactions between the various config files), things get easier.
Slashdot Mirror
Where do I need net access the most?
At home - OK, covered.
In the car - Not often, but when I do I use cell phone GPRS via bluetooth to a laptop or PDA. Do I really want to be driving around to find a Fon hotspot (fuel costs and inconvenience) and how many will be on the side of motorways and main roads anyway?
At airports - Yeah, right, the paid wifi service providers are really gonna let this happen. Stand by for clause changes in all shop leases to prevent them having a Fon router.
At railway stations - See above.
When I am walking through a shopping centre - Well, maybe (but not very often), but see airports.
When I am walking through the suburbs - What, carrying a laptop or PDA out in the open? OK, maybe (but not often)
Pubs and restaurants? Hmm - let's see... "...well Mr (or Ms) landlord; you can have a 'free-ish' router in return for a service elsewhere that might be handy to you once in a while (or will give you a small kickback) - OR you can spend some money on a 'proper' system with controlled access and we'll maintain it for you and split the profits..."
So is Fon going to blanket cover massive swathes of the globe - nah, you'll end up with lots of little clusters and big gaps inbetween.
Nice idea, happy to see it take off, but am very sceptical.
Trying to bid for an item the other day, I made a few tentative bids during the last 5 minutes and someone was manually bidding slightly higher every time so I held back a 'confirm your bid' page for my maximum amount and submitted it 10 seconds before the auction ended. Guess what - a lovely ebay message that 'an error has occurred' and by the time I had gone back to the item page and re-keyed the bid the auction had ended. I queried this with ebay and got a multi-page 'cut-and-paste' job that basically told me 'like we care'.
Hi tech phones eh? Hmm..I can see it now: my home phone having an 8 megapixel camera so I can lift it up and take a picture of the postman as he drops off my mail, or maybe an artistic one of the shelf on the wall in the hallway.
...allowed one phone call when arrested!!
Have to agree - it's goddamn awful. The font is too thin, especially when reversed. My eyes ain't what they used to be and diabetes doesn't help, but the new font just looks wrong - as if someone is going to give it a tweak at any moment and put the proper one in.
Your argument would hold more water if the only code being executed was:
;Fly Plane Safely All the Time
FPSAT
AND FPSAT was a microcode instruction AND the CPU contained the AI of a perfect pilot AND it had no bugs AND it was not likely to be affected by power glitches or other external influences.
Have to do a 'me too' on that - the font is too harsh and not easy on the eyes. The overall 'look and feel' is hard-edged too - needs some roundedness.
The only saving grace is that Adblock Plus still works!
Half way through a long flight, the Pilot and First Officer hear a beep...they glance at the display units and a chill runs through their body...
"An update has been installed that requires a reboot of your aircraft..."
..and the bit where Tweedle Dum (or was it Tweedle Dee?) accidentally cut off Bruce Dern's leg while trying to repair it..oh and the version where Kahn says "No hard feelings, Kirk - you were just doing your job"
Amen to all that - I have an Orange (UK) SmartPhone running Micro$oft's OS and some of the most fundamental tasks require so many menu clicks it's unbelievable:
Set the alarm: Start, 4 (settings), 9 (more), 3 (Date and Time), 4 x Scroll, Enter.
Compare this to my previous phone: 'Settings' button, Date and Time, Enter.
My old phone was also sensible enough to allow opt-out days on alarms so you could have a recurrent wake up for work days that didn't operate at weekends - now I get hit with a 6.30 alarm on Saturday and Sunday unless I remember to turn it off - and then I have to remember to turn it on again on Sunday night or be late for work!
On one occasion I used my old phone to record someone threatening me in the street (I didn't need to use it as the incident calmed down) all I had to do was covertly hold down one button. This is impossible on the new phone as you have to look at and navigate the menus:
Start...9 (More)...5 (Voice notes)...Record
Mind you, my new phone could have also recorded video of the incident:
Click camera button...Menu...Capture mode....2 (Video)...Capture
Not exactly subtle and the act of me staring and operating my phone during such a tese moment would probably have got me clobbered! In any case, the last time I tried to record some video for fun, the phone refused ('Insufficient memory') and I had to reboot it to free some RAM for the OS. Picture the scene..
Click...click...click...click...[Error]...Oh, wait Mr Thug, I need to reboot my phone, can you hang on for about 2 minutes and bear with me as I may need to take out the battery if the reboot hangs.
There was some speculation that Nokia are (or were considering) relaunching one of their more basic models (the 6310i) due to popular demand.
You kinda beat me to to it - I was wondering whether Okpipi runs on Wii to help piss all over the spammers?
Tough shit - I'm trademarking 'Web' so you and your derivatives are fscked!
'AVG Free' is free for home users but not for business use
I understand that the technology involves covering the object with life-size photos of Osama Bin Laden, upon which the object disappears and can't be traced by anyone.
The only side-effect is that audio and video recordings of the object can occasionally be heard in Al Jazeera offices.
Never mind what RMS denies or not - what does Netcraft have to say about it?
To true:
About 5 years ago, I was walking back to the station having been at an IT conference and exhibition in Manchester (UK) and learned from the guy ahead of me (who was on his phone and talking to a colleague beside hin too) that a major UK system reseller was about to go bust. Teh two ahead of me were discussing whether it would be worth making a bid for the liquidated company.
Mind you, I also once sat opposite a lawyer on a train who had case notes and witness statements spread across the table - interesting read, it was!
Woosh!
That was the sound of irony flying right over your head.
I REALLY have more important things to fret about than this - for example:
Why do supermarkets keep relocating the stock in different parts of the store?
Why is the first biscuit in a pack always broken - and in which case why don't the manufacturers just leave it out?
Why when I see "New Improved" on a product do I just *know* it will be worse than the previous one?
Why when a compiler *knows* there is a semicolon missing from the end of line 67 doesn't it just damn well add one?
Parma ham is hung and slowly matured unpacked for months in dry caves in Italian mountains, yet when you buy it from the deli it says on the pack 'eat within three days' - WTF?
L3K
PS: Just before you actually give any answers to any of these - think about it - you will just look very very sad!
This sounds like a really useful remote admin tool - may I have a copy!
Thought I'd surfed to Digg for a mo!
Yep: Even though it was tough to go through the rough in Slough, I ploughed through with hardly a thought!
Bad perspective.
If you consider the users to be morons and know that they will fail to follow security advice than you plan for this. You can implement training to 'un-moron' them to a degree, but it is not wise to consider that the post-training person will do what they have been told all of the time.
*ANYONE* in any support or consultancy role that starts to say to themselves (about the users) "You'd think that they would/wouldn't...." (eg: You'd think that they would know not to login as someone else") is totally missing the point about human behaviour and is not approaching the problem or their role in the correct way.
Me too - used to work for Link-Miles in the UK in the visuals dept, but I left around the time we were replacing multi-processor 286 boards with 386-based ones!
There was a lot of work going on with ASIC design and also some playing with SGI kit for software simulation but the writing was on the wall that 'simple' off-the-peg kit could do better than we were doing with banks of CPU boards and at a cost far cheaper than 'specialist' stuff like SGI and MicroVAX.
Have to admit that I am a bit of a Nagios fan - it's monitoring servers (Windows and Linus) and broadband links on 30 sites for me.
I'd just like to disagree with your comment that Nagios can get arduous to setup if you're looking at a lot of servers - in reality once you have found a configuration and set of monitoring parameters that suits you, adding more servers becomes a simple cut/paste + edit job to create new definitions for the servers - not so bad.
I daresay Nagios is OTT for your app as you might as well have someone walk roudn and check the machines! Nevertheless, have another go with it as once you get over the steep part of the learning curve it gets better.
My installation is monitoring 30 sites; that;s: 30 ADSL routers, 15 Win2K servers and 5 Linux boxes and once the basics are in place (which means getting to grips with the interactions between the various config files), things get easier.