I don't know about elsewhere, but most of the business machines I see are still running an OS older than Win2k. I said it that way to include those that still run their business with Lotus123 on a DOS box.
Honestly, it's like living in the frickin stoneage around here.
I agree with your point, and have an example!
Here at work there is an 80 year old fart that thinks MS can do no wrong by reason that they are the largest OS maker on the planet. That's it, no other reasons. For him, that means they must be the best there is, no matter what product they are currently pushing. Security? Pah, doesn't bother him in the slightest. Usability? HAH! He loves Access and wouldn't consider the possibility of anything else, even if our database crashes at the slightest breath.
On the other hand, it's really fun to screw with him.
I cleaned a computer for a customer (severely infected, wound up just starting over with a clean install for time's sake), got all of the windows updates, installed antivirus, antispyware, a firewall, and then spent an 1 1/2 hours teaching her how and why to use the software. She came back to the shop two days later, and said her 14 year old son (she told me his age) did not think they needed all of that, and had her (yes, she did it) uninstall the antivirus, firewall, and antispyware stuff. She believed him over me. Was I just not convincing? Did I not look 'geek' enough to know what I was talking about? Perhaps the 2nd fat cleaning bill got her attention.
Another bomb I once dropped on someone: if your teenager refuses to help keep the computer free of garbage, the least they could do is help pay the bill. The parent and I both really liked that idea, but the kid standing next to them gave me the evil eye. Go figure.
Most of the people I talk to don't take computer security seriously. They don't care if some hacker is using their machine as a zombie, as long as minesweeper still works and their kids can chat online. I've tried tieing the two concepts together for them (security=long term usability) but most just don't care. In a culture where you just throw the old one away when it doesn't work, who can really blame them?
Finally! Get their fat butts up and outside! Of course, that'll only last as long as it takes to get to the store and back. You actually think the majority of people that this will affect (as in change the way they spend their days/evenings) CARE?
Even if they do (on some snowy day in hell) get up off the couch long enough to speak up about it, they'll sit down as soon as our yokel prez tells them it's for the good of America.
You have to remember that the majority of people this will affect most have an invisible nose ring that they are led around by.
TV Announcer:"Time to buy a digital TV!"
Yokel:"OK, Maw. No food this week, the man said to buy a TV."
On second thought, and I believe I speak for all our people, this is the last straw! Vive le revloution! Destroy the TV monarchists! Long live the couch potatoes! Free beer and porno for all! Oops, I doubt that last bit will fly...
How about... ...allowing viruses & spyware onto end users machines without their knowledge or permission? ...clobbering all attempts at online security? (specifically, IE) ...useful only because the entire Windows Update service was made for it? ...allows die-hard MS junkies to gripe about how OSS is 'not standards compliant', even though ActiveX was never a standard?
I think I'll have to agree with you. Now I'm not a 'web-designer', I wouldn't give myself a title that laden with BS. I have created a web page for a small business that I used to work for, and they recently had a 'pro' web design firm give them a quote and example for a redesign of the old site.
Now the funny part is this: the example was an obvious 5-minute solution to the problems that, I admit, were mostly due to my not being a very good web designer. Things like my choice of colors (black background), the use of frames (hey, it worked then and still does in all browsers!), and lack of anything cool like CSS (built it when CSS was still unsupported by IE). But the problems that were solved were nothing to the problems that replaced them, and the resulting example looked worse than my original page. At the very least, my design looks nearly identical on a range of screen resolutions and different browsers (640x480:1280x1024, IE, Netscape, Firefox, Opera) and that was one of the main objectives when I created it. From the example they sent the company (and others from their website) they have no concept that users may prefer to have a screen size of 640x480 and only use 256 colors (and yes, the company has good solid customers that still use this).
It's also an unfortunate fact that this 'pro' web-design firm uses Flash in almost all of their websites. It seems to be a prevalent thought in the web-design world that if you're not capable of viewing the web page, it's your problem, not the designer's. Despite having seen many articles about design that berate people who code for specific browsers, resolutions, or use 'browser requirements', I still see a huge number of websites that apparently have no clue as to what customer service is. It's not the customer cow-towing to your requirements, that's for sure.
So like I said, I'm not a web designer. I prefer the term 'antagonistic art-snob hater', since that's what a lot of 'web designers' seem to be: art-snobs. And I'm still better than some of the pro's.
Perhaps you missed the grandparent's point. Malware, viruses, and things like this DNS spoofing are (and should be regarded as) *gasp* terrorism. DHS was setup to defend our country against terrorism. So he has a valid point. I'm not saying that's all the Nazi SS...oops, I mean Homeland Security...need to worry about, but it's part of the overall picture.
Besides, just what do you think is going on in Iraq right now? Surely, no innocents are being impacted in any way by our colonialist empire building leadership. No, sir! Besides, they asked for it, right? We were FORCED to go to war with Iraq!
Truly sorry to have shattered your sheeplike illusions.
Wow, are you serious? I saw enough grammatical errors in his story to make me think "gee, this was done in a rush". But perhaps you're just having an off-day.
Would such a creature like, and cherish us, humans, like we cherish and protect the amimals, plants and the environment?
Wow. What planet do you live on, and how do I get there? Seriously, last I heard we were still on the fast track to destroying most life on this planet, including us. What makes you think WE cherish and protect anything except our MONEY?
Personally, I welcome our new metal robot overlords! Hail to the 2ton idiotsmasher! Lord knows, I'd probably be one of the first to go.
Technically, the license of use on the older style of media was exactly the same as what they're trying to do with DRM. They simply didn't have any useful way of stopping you from doing what you wanted.
Don't get me wrong, I'm against DRM, but don't try to kid yourself that you ever truly 'owned' the content on your older stuff, either. You were buying licensed content, with all the crap TOU we're dealing with now. If they wanted to, they could have gone after you for every cassette or VHS tape you ever copied. What stopped them was cost/benefit. The only ones who ever got busted were people doing it as large operations.
So, it really comes down to more of a misunderstanding about what you had then and what you're getting now. Again, I hate DRM, but you're not helping anyone with this rhetoric.
Yeah, like that's any different from XP, which doesn't even begin to function properly until you have 256MB.
I really don't want to argue with you MS loonies, as I always wind up in an infinite recursion of stupid comments from you. Just admit that XP sucks ass compared to OSX.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know about elsewhere, but most of the business machines I see are still running an OS older than Win2k. I said it that way to include those that still run their business with Lotus123 on a DOS box.
Honestly, it's like living in the frickin stoneage around here.
I agree with your point, and have an example!
Here at work there is an 80 year old fart that thinks MS can do no wrong by reason that they are the largest OS maker on the planet. That's it, no other reasons. For him, that means they must be the best there is, no matter what product they are currently pushing. Security? Pah, doesn't bother him in the slightest. Usability? HAH! He loves Access and wouldn't consider the possibility of anything else, even if our database crashes at the slightest breath.
On the other hand, it's really fun to screw with him.
Absolutely agree with your comments, but I feel this needs to be pointed out. His own personal favorite acronym for a Open Source Labor Union? STUDS.
This makes the rest of the article completely ridiculous.
Hey, if we're so damn powerful, why don't we get this jackass fired?
That is awesome. Thank you. :)
Ok, I know I shouldn't respond to a sig, but I couldn't help myself:
Look really fast?
Yay! I can now tell people I'm omnitalented instead of just indecisive!
I've tried. It doesn't help.
I cleaned a computer for a customer (severely infected, wound up just starting over with a clean install for time's sake), got all of the windows updates, installed antivirus, antispyware, a firewall, and then spent an 1 1/2 hours teaching her how and why to use the software. She came back to the shop two days later, and said her 14 year old son (she told me his age) did not think they needed all of that, and had her (yes, she did it) uninstall the antivirus, firewall, and antispyware stuff. She believed him over me. Was I just not convincing? Did I not look 'geek' enough to know what I was talking about? Perhaps the 2nd fat cleaning bill got her attention.
Another bomb I once dropped on someone: if your teenager refuses to help keep the computer free of garbage, the least they could do is help pay the bill. The parent and I both really liked that idea, but the kid standing next to them gave me the evil eye. Go figure.
Most of the people I talk to don't take computer security seriously. They don't care if some hacker is using their machine as a zombie, as long as minesweeper still works and their kids can chat online. I've tried tieing the two concepts together for them (security=long term usability) but most just don't care. In a culture where you just throw the old one away when it doesn't work, who can really blame them?
I wonder if his server got a BSOD?
A rather neat article (granted it's from 2001) from Tom's Hardware about CPU heat: http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20010917/index.ht ml
d =1
And a video to go along with it: http://www.tomshardware.com/cgi-bin/downloads.m?i
Finally! Get their fat butts up and outside! Of course, that'll only last as long as it takes to get to the store and back. You actually think the majority of people that this will affect (as in change the way they spend their days/evenings) CARE?
Even if they do (on some snowy day in hell) get up off the couch long enough to speak up about it, they'll sit down as soon as our yokel prez tells them it's for the good of America.
You have to remember that the majority of people this will affect most have an invisible nose ring that they are led around by.
TV Announcer:"Time to buy a digital TV!"
Yokel:"OK, Maw. No food this week, the man said to buy a TV."
On second thought, and I believe I speak for all our people, this is the last straw! Vive le revloution! Destroy the TV monarchists! Long live the couch potatoes! Free beer and porno for all! Oops, I doubt that last bit will fly...
How about...
...allowing viruses & spyware onto end users machines without their knowledge or permission?
...clobbering all attempts at online security? (specifically, IE)
...useful only because the entire Windows Update service was made for it?
...allows die-hard MS junkies to gripe about how OSS is 'not standards compliant', even though ActiveX was never a standard?
I think I'll have to agree with you. Now I'm not a 'web-designer', I wouldn't give myself a title that laden with BS. I have created a web page for a small business that I used to work for, and they recently had a 'pro' web design firm give them a quote and example for a redesign of the old site.
Now the funny part is this: the example was an obvious 5-minute solution to the problems that, I admit, were mostly due to my not being a very good web designer. Things like my choice of colors (black background), the use of frames (hey, it worked then and still does in all browsers!), and lack of anything cool like CSS (built it when CSS was still unsupported by IE). But the problems that were solved were nothing to the problems that replaced them, and the resulting example looked worse than my original page. At the very least, my design looks nearly identical on a range of screen resolutions and different browsers (640x480:1280x1024, IE, Netscape, Firefox, Opera) and that was one of the main objectives when I created it. From the example they sent the company (and others from their website) they have no concept that users may prefer to have a screen size of 640x480 and only use 256 colors (and yes, the company has good solid customers that still use this).
It's also an unfortunate fact that this 'pro' web-design firm uses Flash in almost all of their websites. It seems to be a prevalent thought in the web-design world that if you're not capable of viewing the web page, it's your problem, not the designer's. Despite having seen many articles about design that berate people who code for specific browsers, resolutions, or use 'browser requirements', I still see a huge number of websites that apparently have no clue as to what customer service is. It's not the customer cow-towing to your requirements, that's for sure.
So like I said, I'm not a web designer. I prefer the term 'antagonistic art-snob hater', since that's what a lot of 'web designers' seem to be: art-snobs. And I'm still better than some of the pro's.
Perhaps you missed the grandparent's point. Malware, viruses, and things like this DNS spoofing are (and should be regarded as) *gasp* terrorism. DHS was setup to defend our country against terrorism. So he has a valid point. I'm not saying that's all the Nazi SS...oops, I mean Homeland Security...need to worry about, but it's part of the overall picture.
Besides, just what do you think is going on in Iraq right now? Surely, no innocents are being impacted in any way by our colonialist empire building leadership. No, sir! Besides, they asked for it, right? We were FORCED to go to war with Iraq!
Truly sorry to have shattered your sheeplike illusions.
How about....
Slashdot interviewing outside firms to come up with creative content. Areas of website included will be Polls and April Fools Day stories.
God I wish this were true.
Wow, are you serious? I saw enough grammatical errors in his story to make me think "gee, this was done in a rush". But perhaps you're just having an off-day.
Wow. What planet do you live on, and how do I get there? Seriously, last I heard we were still on the fast track to destroying most life on this planet, including us. What makes you think WE cherish and protect anything except our MONEY?
Personally, I welcome our new metal robot overlords! Hail to the 2ton idiotsmasher! Lord knows, I'd probably be one of the first to go.
Wow.
How long did that take you to type in?
Technically, the license of use on the older style of media was exactly the same as what they're trying to do with DRM. They simply didn't have any useful way of stopping you from doing what you wanted. Don't get me wrong, I'm against DRM, but don't try to kid yourself that you ever truly 'owned' the content on your older stuff, either. You were buying licensed content, with all the crap TOU we're dealing with now. If they wanted to, they could have gone after you for every cassette or VHS tape you ever copied. What stopped them was cost/benefit. The only ones who ever got busted were people doing it as large operations. So, it really comes down to more of a misunderstanding about what you had then and what you're getting now. Again, I hate DRM, but you're not helping anyone with this rhetoric.
Take that in your pipe and smoke it, you nasty web design artist snobs.
Actually, if you're a 'normal' user, you don't even know what a patch is, let alone be aware that if you don't have them your system is vulnerable.
I'm still routinely installing patches that came out pre-SP1 on customer's computers. Ugh.
Of course, that's after removing all the garbageware that they willingly installed on their machines in the first place. Double Ugh.
I rather enjoyed Dr. Who, but since I was a little kid and it aired after bedtime, I rarely got to see an episode in it's entirety.
Those times when I did get to see some of it, I enjoyed it, but I don't think it was worth the ass-bruising I got sneaking into the living room.
Damnit, I keep telling you! Theres something on the wing of the plane! (in Shatner's broken dialect voice)
OH DAMNATION!!
Where did I leave my troll-killing flamethrower, anyway??
So many trolls & flamebaits, so few mod points...
Yeah, like that's any different from XP, which doesn't even begin to function properly until you have 256MB.
I really don't want to argue with you MS loonies, as I always wind up in an infinite recursion of stupid comments from you. Just admit that XP sucks ass compared to OSX.