Why you ask? Because its tighly integrated into Excahnge.
I just WISH the government would wake up!
I just wish people in general would wake up. I'm not trying to troll here, but that is the whole point of free software, to give the choice to you. It should always worry anyone when a company tries to tie to products together in such a way that they cannot be afterward seperated.
As soon as you see the writing on the wall, it's time to start thinking about a switch to something that won't leave you high and dry when the rules of the game change.
...but do people know of any good uses that don't invade on our privacy?
I'm thinking property control. The college of engineering at the university I attend loses close to 10% of computers and related peripherals every year, either because they are "lost" or stolen. RFID tags on university property would be great, because it would allow them to acccurately see the location on campus of any piece of equipment. Then, if after hours one day, a 21" LCD monitor starts walking down the hall into an elevator from a lab, the university police can investigate.
A person who makes a worm to fix the exploit, while doing a good deed, can still get in trouble.. What if the patch screws up and totally crashes some companies computer and causes them to lose important data? They'll sue this guy.
Actually, the RIAA will probably grab it and try to turn it into something they can release on P2P users. That way they can say, "See, we told you so. It is even on our website. You get viruses by sharing files."
I'm sure many people here have done voluntary tech support for friends and family. What do you find to be the most frequent problems?
Most common problem is email. My dad called me up after I helped my brother install some DJ software on the computer. He said email was broken, he couldn't get any new messages (and of course it was my fault because of the new software I installed). I went over, logged into Outlook, and then explained to my dad the two little computer-looking things in the system-tray would blink whenever data was being transfered. The were blinking like crazy, but nothing was showing up in the inbox. I suspected a large email, so I let it sit for a few hours. It turns out that one of his friends had just gotten DSL and sent him (and everyone else on his mailing list) 5 emails full of photos at ~10MB per message, to people who mostly use DIALUP. This is just one example of the dumb things I come across just related to email.
The next most common problem is IE. Whenever a friend calls me up and says they have a problem with some internet-related thing (nearly always spyware or drive-by downloads), I ask "are you using Mozilla or Firebird?" If the answer is no, I tell them to download one and call back if they have anymore problems. Mysteriously, they never call back about a problem with surfing the web.
The next most common is backups. People just don't do them and then get pissed when they get a virus or their drive fails. Nothing can really be done about that.
There are bunch of others, but those are the worst offenders.
Maybe we'll see less VBS worms getting spread around. That assumes they yank out OE from Windows.
Considering the lackluster rates of adoption for MS's newest offerings, I would say the danger will be there for a very long time to come. Just look at how many people still run 98. I have a friend who spent a lot of money on a gaming rig, lots of RAM, powerful video card. You know what he did? He tossed his old machine, popped in his Win 98SE CD and off he went.
Since most home users see 98 as pretty much everything they need (and we are almost done with 2003, so it a five year old OS) it will be a while untill it goes away.
I'll wait while the "wind0ze suX0rs!" 1337 Hackors try to make this sound insignificant to linux, but can blow up on MS when a virus is released.
This is not at all insignificant. Of course more detail is really needed to asses the situation.
Here are two possible scenarios:
1. Some idiot with lots of access rights does something dumb like log in in the clear. I think this is unlikely, but if it did happen this guy (or girl) should be soundly beat about the head and shoulders.
2. The software they were running has some yet not found flaw (at least is was found by the crackers). Oh well, we need to look for it and fix it. There has probably not been a single piece of non-trivial software (not just OS) written that has not had some known or unkown security flaw waiting to be exploited.
As far as blowing up when a virus exploiting an MS vulnerability, it should be the MS users up in arms. Especially when they refuse to fix some of their systems, like NT4 (I know it is EOL'd, but this last one is a major problem).
Installation from source is not hard for the initiated, but for the new user (who has had zero computer programming experience) it is hell.
I think you have defeated your own argument here. Installing from source is not an user function, but an administrator function (especially with zero computer experience). In Win95/98/Me (and other single user OSs) the distinction is not made, but it is in multi-user OSs. In that case the user(s) and admin(s) are differnet (sets) of people, with the notable exception of home systems.
Even then, an admin needs to know what he is doing to install from source. There very few reasons to ever install anything from source. Maybe a kernel if you need to patch it for special drivers or support, or a program that you need to hack to work with your hardware (in both cases you would know what you are doing). Otherwise, you should be using your distro's pre-packaged binaries or those provided by the developers.
but we know that if in 10 years, we perform an :
apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade
our system will be updated...
Actually, in ten years you will want to perform an apt-get dist-upgrade. This will allow removal of obselete packages to meet the dependency requirements of new packages.
It will take a vast reversal in public opinion, many brave and ambitious politicians, and some fierce competition. So far we have 1 out of 3.
Not trolling, but which one do we have now?
Microsoft's public opinion is beginning to wane, but it will be years before the level is up to public outrage or disgust on a majority level.
Brave and ambitious politions. Well, I won't say anything about that.
I like to the think that the F/OSS is providing fierce competition (they way that so many developers simply continue to press on in the face of all the naysaying is truly admirable). But, like the public opinion, it will still be some time before we reach a critical mass. Thankfully, that time may be quick in coming.
100 Megabit Network does not actually deliver 100 Megabit transfer speeds. Film at 11.
It does if you have enough processor power and I/O bandwidth. I have an Athlon XP 2500 + and a P-III 700 MHz on my desk. I can scp huge files between the two at about 7 MB/s (or 56 Megabits) through a basic 10/100 switch. The limiting factor is processor power on the P-III. With scp, and an otherwise light load, it uses all the available cycles to deliver the 7 MB/s. I'm sure if I used an in the clear protocol, like rcp or ftp, I could go higher, but I am already close to the limits of the harddrive as it is.
As far as a Gigabit, I'm sure if you hooked two powerful SMP machines with 20k RPM SCSI drives, you could probably fill the pipe. But what would it gain you? Other than bragging rights among your friends?
I doubt most governments would agree to sponsor something if they could not exercise tight control over it.
Aparently you've never heard of DARPA and this little thing called the internet. Yes, the government usually funds things that are in its best interest. However, agencies like DARPA have historically funded very long range visionary and exploratory research.
It is difficult for the government to have tight control over something like that.
...they don't know enough and would rather be able to call up microsoft when something goes wrong, but if we show them a superior product, that is likely to get a response from them.
Even that is a myth, though (the calling up MS part). I mean, really, how many people (home users) actually call up and speak to MS at $125/incident. I specify home users, becuase I imagine that most medium and large businesses opt for contract based support. I think that in reality most poeple hit the mailing lists and discussion boards, just like for Linux and other F/OSS products.
I also know that many people think that the Linux mailing lists are full of 733t attitudes and RTFM responses, but I haven't really seen that in the lists to which I subscribe. However, I have observed that such attitudes occur as frequently on MS-related mailing lists as they do on Linux-related lists. In essence, there is parity in the public and freely available support mechanisms. The only real difference is in things like contract support and MSDN, where if you pay a company many thousands of dollars you don't them to reply with "RTFM."
I think that if you explain to people that it is conceptually the same thing (i.e., from the level what an OS and what it is supposed to do) then it is not real difficult to get them to switch, unless they have an overriding reason like a work-related product that only runs on Windows.
So true... Often modern technology is simply cheaper than the "simple" stuff. Think cellular phones in areas without standard phone networks...
Sometimes it has to do with cost. A friend of mine was in a rural part of Ecuador years ago when a US (I believe) phone company was contracted to lay a phone network. He told me that one day the workers would be there laying the cables, and they next day the cables were dug up and gone. Aparently the impoverished residents thought they could get some money for the copper in the wires, so they would "harvest" the cables. This supposedly prompted a more widespread deployment of cellular service.
The real question is, what if I don't have a computer in my dorm room? Do I still have to get stuck paying this?
There is still a university with dorms that doesn't require incoming students to own a computer?
Most every school I have been to or visited (about a dozen) already requires or is considering the requirement as a condission of admission that the student own a computer that meets certain specs.
I don't particularly like it, especially when it comes to public schools where a good chunk of the student population comes from low income families, but it seems to be the trend in the Real World (TM).
Re:Not a very impressive review
on
LinuxTag Show Report
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Anyway, this is a breeze of fresh air in the usual climate of corporate demos where they only show the stuff they know to work reliably.
I am sure that this would have been your reaction if it had been a microsoft demo that crashed.
I think it would have cleared things up for you to read the last sentence in his paragaph:
The Linux and Open Source people just proved that they don't do this to bullshit people, they do it for the fun of it!
Microsoft is company trying to make a profit. They have shareholders to answer to. The KDE and GNOME people do not. However, this does not apply solely to Microsoft. If Red Hat or SuSe showed up with anything less then a "Microsoft quality" presentation they would also be quickly lambasted. The core developers (in this case of KDE and GNOME) do this for fun, as the OP pointed out. When an actual business venture is based on the product, however, they must take a more stable and conservative approach. Which is why the major distros don't typically incorporate the latest CVS versions of anything without good cause.
UI design isnt about putting important stuff in order, it's about making important stuff easily accessible and putting unimportant stuff out of the way.
How about the crap that MS pulled by placing the minimize/maximize right next to the close button (whereas in previous UIs the close button had been on the left so that it would be nearly impossible to exit an app accidentally while trying to minimize)? I would hardly consider that an improvement in ordering and accessibility.
That would be a fair comparison if you could cite an article written by Microsoft pointing out (one could say "gloating about") the various failures that came from UC.
So where's the link?
Why not just have the UC registrar send you a list of students in the CS/CpE department that started taking thesis/dissertation hours and then never defended. I would say that would qualify as a fairly good representation of R&D "failures."
Why not include the option with linux to boot it into a special "Gaming Mode" that loads only what is needed to play games and nothing else? Would this make them run faster than on Windows that forces 100's of MB of crap to load no matter what.
Slashdot Mirror
Why you ask? Because its tighly integrated into Excahnge.
I just WISH the government would wake up!
I just wish people in general would wake up. I'm not trying to troll here, but that is the whole point of free software, to give the choice to you. It should always worry anyone when a company tries to tie to products together in such a way that they cannot be afterward seperated.
As soon as you see the writing on the wall, it's time to start thinking about a switch to something that won't leave you high and dry when the rules of the game change.
I'm thinking property control. The college of engineering at the university I attend loses close to 10% of computers and related peripherals every year, either because they are "lost" or stolen. RFID tags on university property would be great, because it would allow them to acccurately see the location on campus of any piece of equipment. Then, if after hours one day, a 21" LCD monitor starts walking down the hall into an elevator from a lab, the university police can investigate.
Um...no. He is using GNOME 1.4, take a closer look.
So tell me again why anyone should buy from Intel.
Duh...to get "Intel Inside" sticker on the computer's case. Sheesh, some people just don't get it.
A person who makes a worm to fix the exploit, while doing a good deed, can still get in trouble.. What if the patch screws up and totally crashes some companies computer and causes them to lose important data? They'll sue this guy.
Actually, the RIAA will probably grab it and try to turn it into something they can release on P2P users. That way they can say, "See, we told you so. It is even on our website. You get viruses by sharing files."
I'm sure many people here have done voluntary tech support for friends and family. What do you find to be the most frequent problems?
Most common problem is email. My dad called me up after I helped my brother install some DJ software on the computer. He said email was broken, he couldn't get any new messages (and of course it was my fault because of the new software I installed). I went over, logged into Outlook, and then explained to my dad the two little computer-looking things in the system-tray would blink whenever data was being transfered. The were blinking like crazy, but nothing was showing up in the inbox. I suspected a large email, so I let it sit for a few hours. It turns out that one of his friends had just gotten DSL and sent him (and everyone else on his mailing list) 5 emails full of photos at ~10MB per message, to people who mostly use DIALUP. This is just one example of the dumb things I come across just related to email.
The next most common problem is IE. Whenever a friend calls me up and says they have a problem with some internet-related thing (nearly always spyware or drive-by downloads), I ask "are you using Mozilla or Firebird?" If the answer is no, I tell them to download one and call back if they have anymore problems. Mysteriously, they never call back about a problem with surfing the web.
The next most common is backups. People just don't do them and then get pissed when they get a virus or their drive fails. Nothing can really be done about that.
There are bunch of others, but those are the worst offenders.
Maybe we'll see less VBS worms getting spread around. That assumes they yank out OE from Windows.
Considering the lackluster rates of adoption for MS's newest offerings, I would say the danger will be there for a very long time to come. Just look at how many people still run 98. I have a friend who spent a lot of money on a gaming rig, lots of RAM, powerful video card. You know what he did? He tossed his old machine, popped in his Win 98SE CD and off he went.
Since most home users see 98 as pretty much everything they need (and we are almost done with 2003, so it a five year old OS) it will be a while untill it goes away.
I'll wait while the "wind0ze suX0rs!" 1337 Hackors try to make this sound insignificant to linux, but can blow up on MS when a virus is released.
This is not at all insignificant. Of course more detail is really needed to asses the situation.
Here are two possible scenarios:
1. Some idiot with lots of access rights does something dumb like log in in the clear. I think this is unlikely, but if it did happen this guy (or girl) should be soundly beat about the head and shoulders.
2. The software they were running has some yet not found flaw (at least is was found by the crackers). Oh well, we need to look for it and fix it. There has probably not been a single piece of non-trivial software (not just OS) written that has not had some known or unkown security flaw waiting to be exploited.
As far as blowing up when a virus exploiting an MS vulnerability, it should be the MS users up in arms. Especially when they refuse to fix some of their systems, like NT4 (I know it is EOL'd, but this last one is a major problem).
Installation from source is not hard for the initiated, but for the new user (who has had zero computer programming experience) it is hell.
I think you have defeated your own argument here. Installing from source is not an user function, but an administrator function (especially with zero computer experience). In Win95/98/Me (and other single user OSs) the distinction is not made, but it is in multi-user OSs. In that case the user(s) and admin(s) are differnet (sets) of people, with the notable exception of home systems.
Even then, an admin needs to know what he is doing to install from source. There very few reasons to ever install anything from source. Maybe a kernel if you need to patch it for special drivers or support, or a program that you need to hack to work with your hardware (in both cases you would know what you are doing). Otherwise, you should be using your distro's pre-packaged binaries or those provided by the developers.
but we know that if in 10 years, we perform an :
apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade
our system will be updated...
Actually, in ten years you will want to perform an apt-get dist-upgrade. This will allow removal of obselete packages to meet the dependency requirements of new packages.
I can tell my wife that she should let me a new 3 carat Radeon 18000 Pro for our anniversary? I mean, it has diamonds, after all.
They're going to buy every Congressman from Alaska to Puerto Rico to shut this scam down.
Uhh...Puerto Rico does not have Congressmen in the traditional sense. They have "non-voting delegates" to the House and Senate.
It will take a vast reversal in public opinion, many brave and ambitious politicians, and some fierce competition. So far we have 1 out of 3.
Not trolling, but which one do we have now?
Microsoft's public opinion is beginning to wane, but it will be years before the level is up to public outrage or disgust on a majority level.
Brave and ambitious politions. Well, I won't say anything about that.
I like to the think that the F/OSS is providing fierce competition (they way that so many developers simply continue to press on in the face of all the naysaying is truly admirable). But, like the public opinion, it will still be some time before we reach a critical mass. Thankfully, that time may be quick in coming.
100 Megabit Network does not actually deliver 100 Megabit transfer speeds. Film at 11.
It does if you have enough processor power and I/O bandwidth. I have an Athlon XP 2500 + and a P-III 700 MHz on my desk. I can scp huge files between the two at about 7 MB/s (or 56 Megabits) through a basic 10/100 switch. The limiting factor is processor power on the P-III. With scp, and an otherwise light load, it uses all the available cycles to deliver the 7 MB/s. I'm sure if I used an in the clear protocol, like rcp or ftp, I could go higher, but I am already close to the limits of the harddrive as it is.
As far as a Gigabit, I'm sure if you hooked two powerful SMP machines with 20k RPM SCSI drives, you could probably fill the pipe. But what would it gain you? Other than bragging rights among your friends?
I doubt most governments would agree to sponsor something if they could not exercise tight control over it.
Aparently you've never heard of DARPA and this little thing called the internet. Yes, the government usually funds things that are in its best interest. However, agencies like DARPA have historically funded very long range visionary and exploratory research.
It is difficult for the government to have tight control over something like that.
I'm still waiting for Windows 95 on a floppy.
Very easy. Here is how:
Even that is a myth, though (the calling up MS part). I mean, really, how many people (home users) actually call up and speak to MS at $125/incident. I specify home users, becuase I imagine that most medium and large businesses opt for contract based support. I think that in reality most poeple hit the mailing lists and discussion boards, just like for Linux and other F/OSS products.
I also know that many people think that the Linux mailing lists are full of 733t attitudes and RTFM responses, but I haven't really seen that in the lists to which I subscribe. However, I have observed that such attitudes occur as frequently on MS-related mailing lists as they do on Linux-related lists. In essence, there is parity in the public and freely available support mechanisms. The only real difference is in things like contract support and MSDN, where if you pay a company many thousands of dollars you don't them to reply with "RTFM."
I think that if you explain to people that it is conceptually the same thing (i.e., from the level what an OS and what it is supposed to do) then it is not real difficult to get them to switch, unless they have an overriding reason like a work-related product that only runs on Windows.
So true... Often modern technology is simply cheaper than the "simple" stuff. Think cellular phones in areas without standard phone networks...
Sometimes it has to do with cost. A friend of mine was in a rural part of Ecuador years ago when a US (I believe) phone company was contracted to lay a phone network. He told me that one day the workers would be there laying the cables, and they next day the cables were dug up and gone. Aparently the impoverished residents thought they could get some money for the copper in the wires, so they would "harvest" the cables. This supposedly prompted a more widespread deployment of cellular service.
Also, the kernel compile is unfair, because gentoo-sources includes a whole load of patches that Mandrake and Debian don't.
From the article:
That looks pretty fair to me.
The real question is, what if I don't have a computer in my dorm room? Do I still have to get stuck paying this?
There is still a university with dorms that doesn't require incoming students to own a computer?
Most every school I have been to or visited (about a dozen) already requires or is considering the requirement as a condission of admission that the student own a computer that meets certain specs.
I don't particularly like it, especially when it comes to public schools where a good chunk of the student population comes from low income families, but it seems to be the trend in the Real World (TM).
UI design isnt about putting important stuff in order, it's about making important stuff easily accessible and putting unimportant stuff out of the way.
How about the crap that MS pulled by placing the minimize/maximize right next to the close button (whereas in previous UIs the close button had been on the left so that it would be nearly impossible to exit an app accidentally while trying to minimize)? I would hardly consider that an improvement in ordering and accessibility.
That would be a fair comparison if you could cite an article written by Microsoft pointing out (one could say "gloating about") the various failures that came from UC.
So where's the link?
Why not just have the UC registrar send you a list of students in the CS/CpE department that started taking thesis/dissertation hours and then never defended. I would say that would qualify as a fairly good representation of R&D "failures."
Yeah, it was a huge blunder for MS to do all the R&D for KDE and Gnome to copy and give away free.
Just like it was a huge bluder for UC to do tons of research on networking and implement a TCP stack for MS to take it and charge everyone for it?
Why not include the option with linux to boot it into a special "Gaming Mode" that loads only what is needed to play games and nothing else? Would this make them run faster than on Windows that forces 100's of MB of crap to load no matter what.
You mean like using the different run levels?