I've found the "Save as PDF" feature in OO.org to be invaluable.
If you work in an environment that does not require press-quality PDFs, but does use PDFs for office document exchanges, OO.org saves you the $300+ cost of buying Adobe Acrobat.
1. Get your parents a Mac.
2. Install OS X and patch it.
3. Install any extra apps they'll need.
4. Create a managed user account for them that auto-logs in.
5. Deny access to System Preferences and granularly check off which apps are okay for them to run.
6. Turn on Safari's pop-up blocker.
Barring any hardware problems, the Mac will run like a champ. They can do email, web surfing, burn CDs, play with iTunes. All 100% virus and spyware-free, and no pop-ups. The prefect retirement from Windows.
Nothing is better than a good playlist to get lots of desk work done. Be that coding, writing, data entry, or grinding out AA points in EverQuest.
Music just gets me "in the zone" so I can focus on the task at hand while at the same time giving coworkers and spouses a visual cue to not interrupt you.
More than half of the documentation I've done for my company is a result of a few good playlists.
10 years from now, when Peter Jackson completes The Hobbit and New Line Cinema comes out with "The Lord of the Rings: Super Extended Special Ultimate Criterion Quartet Edition" with all 4 movies and 10 full discs of extended footage from all the assorted single-movie releases.
Unlike your refrigerator, radio, television, or microwave, you can't just buy a computer today and expect it to run the latest software 2-4 years from now.
While your refrigerator, radio, television, or microwave can handle the latest in food and radio-broadcast entertainment, software has an ever-changing specification. The computer must conform to the software.
You can upgrade a computer to some extent, but eventually, the system bus speeds reach their peak (if the hardware itself hasn't died).
I'm all for upgrading a PC or "recycling" an old one to people who have less sophisticated needs for a computer.
Even a 486 or a Pre-G3 Power Macintosh can surf the web and do email.
But I'm a gamer and an enthusiast. I upgrade/rebuild my rig constantly, and as far as I know, only my basement suffers from the aggregation of old parts... at least the ones I can't use to build mini Linux PCs.
Where do you draw the line between competition and monopoly? In the early 1990s, Microsoft delivered an OS (Windows 3.x) with some bundled accessories, including Windows Media Player.
Does anyone honestly expect Microsoft to not upgrade the bundled accessories when they upgrade the OS?
Paintbrush can save JPEGs and GIFs now. Notepad can open large text files. Wordpad can now open more embedded Office-type items in doc files. So why can't Windows Media Player also improve?
The problem with Real is that they mismarketed their product during the critical dawn of Internet video streaming. Their product also had performance probl---BUFFERING..0%....34%......78%....---ems that made people turn to alternatives.
The only real claim to fame Real Player was actually had was in the early days when you could find South Park episodes small enough for download via modem.
KB9765432 - Microsoft AV Security Update: A vulnerability has been found in the Microsoft Anti-Virus utility that allows a virus in quarrantine to escape with Administrator access and grant a remote user full access to your computer.
KB9876543 - Internet Explorer Security Update: A vulnerability has been found in the Pop-Up Blocker utility that allows a pop-up to side-step the pop-up blocker and use Active-X to gain Administrator access and grant a remote user full access to your computer.
KB9654321 - Windows Firewall Security Update: A vulnerability has been found in the Windows Firewall utility that opens all of your ports, granting a remote user full access to your computer.
KB9543210 - Windows Messenger Service Security Update: A vulnerability has been found in the Windows Messenger Service that allows a remote user to turn it back on and spam your computer with net sends.
The main problem is that, while Bluetooth may have been in technical news since 1997, it has yet to catch in where it counts: Joe Sixpack.
Meanwhile Wireless-A, -B, and -G have all zipped by technical board rooms and appeared on store shelves at Wal-Mart 2-3 years ago.
Who cares if your new Verizon Wireless phone has "Bluetooth wireless" capability written on its box? Joe Sixpack has never heard of it, and probably doesn't care to find out. He already has seen "wireless" at Wal-Mart, and to him it's "teh old".
Seeing how easily that star was ripped apart (albeit as an artist's animation) made me think of what it must have been like for any life living on a planet orbiting that star.
Especially any sentient, self-aware, intelligent life.
Makes you wonder if that will ever happen to our star.
I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't help but to think of last year's power line-related blackout when I read this article.
(Talk about your netsplits...)
I would wonder whether the data traffic on power lines could contribute (or cause) a blackout, or, worse, during a thunderstorm, NICs could seriously be fried.
The BBC's ignorance in its story isn't surprising. Just because a Windows virus targets SCO doesn't mean that it was written by pro-Linux advocates or that the pro-Linux and open source community supports, condones, or endorses the actions of MyDoom.
That's like the media's tendency to portray that all Muslims support and endorse acts of terrorism against the United States. While some terrorists may be Muslims, the worldwide Muslim community and even the religion itself does not condone or endorse the acts of terrorism.
The MyDoom virus is best described as "Misdirected Flamebait".
I wouldn't be surprised if SCO crafted MyDoom themselves, just adjust the public's opinions of SCO and the Linux/Open Source community in favor of SCO.
Microsoft knows that above anything else, Linux wins in the price of obtaining it (~free).
They know that it's only a matter of time before Linux server management becomes easy enough for uncertified sysadmins to manage them at the same cost as managing a Windows server environment. (some might argue that time is right now).
Even more, Microsoft knows that, somewhere between now and Longhorn's release, someone out there probably will come out with a Linux client desktop UI w/office suite that's as easy and intuitive for Joe Sixpack to use.
The day Joe Sixpack can boot up a Linux box and dial-up, surf the web, send emails, install software, burn CDs and play Windows games (via a zero-config version of Wine) using a FREE OS and open source software, Micrsoft will be doomed.
I hope and pray that the open source community makes the most out of these upcoming, critical years before Longhorn.
Who knows, one day we might have an uber Knoppix-like live-DVD distro that does everything I've mentioned here.... for FREE. Then get some weathy entrepeneur to mail the discs out AOL-style to everyone in the world.
Perhaps. In terms of Physics, every time a spacecraft/probe uses a planet to get a gravity-assist (to conserve fuel, etc), the planet's rotation slows by some amount. Like 1 foot per 1 trillion years.
So maybe all our Earth-based gravity assists for all the probes, shuttles, and satellites have collectively slowed the Earth down enough to = 1 second?
Apple has always stated that there is a Megahertz myth when comparing computer platforms, to which I agree.
However, non-technical people are still buying Intel/AMD-based computers because they have the largest processor speed posted on the shelf (More MHz/GHz = more power, right?).
It's interesting that Apple's upcoming 3+GHz G5 processors will now tout the same speed numbers as Intel/AMD chips.
Surprisingly enough, if "3.xGHz" is on the Mac's box, Apple just might win a few Joe Sixpacks and a few PC converts.
It will only be a matter of time until whatever TSR/service that launches the ads get mangled by user-installed software, spyware/viruses, or the general Windows wear & tear of use.
Instead of getting an advertisement every 20 minutes, you'd get a missing DLL error message, illegal operation pop-up, or, even worse, a BSOD.
Nothing like getting a BSOD while ordering plane tickets online...
If the IRS added a line to contribute funds to NASA, I would gladly donate money to them during tax time every year.
Even if people just donated $1 on their tax forms, imagine how much money that would generate for NASA.
In fact, they can replace the "presidential campaign fund" line with the NASA one. (I think they collect enough campaign funds with $1000/per plate dinners year round.) It would be a much better use of ink.
Not bad for WebTV users
on
AOL's $299 PC
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Hopefully the low price tag will convince people still using WebTV to actually purchase a personal computer.
I can see this as being killer for grandparents and others living on fixed incomes.
The system specs are decent, considering the target audience is probably not going to be encoding digital video, compiling code, or running photoshop.
The office suite is a nice touch. It sucks to get emailed a MS Office document and not being able to open them in anything but WordPad. I get so many tech support calls related to people not being able to open MS Office attachments. If the AOL office suite includes Excel and PowerPoint clones, all the better.
Microsoft is in the business of making money. Apparently, they saw the use of cross-platform sharing via flash devices using the FAT filesystem as a threat to the Microsoft monopoly.
Since they cannot stop third-party manufacturers from developing devices compatible with the FAT filesystem, they decided to just make a few thousand bucks off of them by enforcing their patents on the FAT filesystem.
Clever, if not greedy.
This will put the poorer manufacturers out of business, because there's no way you can sell a flash drive unformatted and expect the consumer to format it.
This is why letting one company become the sole innovator (in Joe Windowsuser's eyes) is bad for the tech industry. The anti-trust trials in the US showed that the US Government is powerless and slow to stop this monopilized stifling of innovation. Instead, Congress should open a Federal-level organization devoted to open source software development, including operating system and office suite software, then let taxes feed the organization.
At then, we'd have another large-sized innovator to put Microsoft on alert, and in check.
You can't just run AdAware and expect the removal process to be complete. There's still much that has to be done, especially registry-wise, or else there might be the kinds of errors mentioned.
The first thing to do is try to uninstall as much of the spyware as possible from the Add/Remove Programs Applet. This kills most of the registry keys and files that pop up errors after spyware is removed.
Once that's done, run AdAware. AdAware should clear out much of the rest of the files, processes, and registry entries.
After the AdAware process, remove spyware startup registry keys from:
And from the appropriate Start Menu Startup folders (both the user's and the "All Users" account's).
Next, check the HOSTS file for any miscreant entries and delete them as necessary.
Reboot.
Check for any spyware processes and hunt them down with the Search tool, deleting the files. Stop and remove any spywre processes remaining.
Snoop around in your Program Files folder and look for any program folders that correspond to the spyware you uninstalled via Add/Remove Programs or via AdAware. Delete them.
Reboot.
If all is well, perform a full anti-virus scan of the machine to make sure there are no viruses.
If you do all of this, the machine can pretty much come out better off than it was before.
I almost always wait until commercial breaks to do something away from the tube, i.e. go to the bathroom, microwaving food, putting food plates away, switching from one room to another room, etc. So I actually never watch television commercials anyway.
The advertisers make up for it though when they force you to watch advertisements during the opening previews at movie theaters and specially coded DVDs that force you to watch previews before allowing you to access to the DVD's menu (though you can fast forward).
Never underestimate the power of being able to make a midnight bathroom run, then suddenly get the desire to watch Office Space on DVD at 3:51am, in your boxers, looking like crap, with no money in your wallet, and no ambition to find/venture_out_to a 24/hr rental store.
That's the real value of owning the DVD versus renting it.
Slashdot Mirror
I've found the "Save as PDF" feature in OO.org to be invaluable.
If you work in an environment that does not require press-quality PDFs, but does use PDFs for office document exchanges, OO.org saves you the $300+ cost of buying Adobe Acrobat.
1. Get your parents a Mac.
2. Install OS X and patch it.
3. Install any extra apps they'll need.
4. Create a managed user account for them that auto-logs in.
5. Deny access to System Preferences and granularly check off which apps are okay for them to run.
6. Turn on Safari's pop-up blocker.
Barring any hardware problems, the Mac will run like a champ. They can do email, web surfing, burn CDs, play with iTunes. All 100% virus and spyware-free, and no pop-ups. The prefect retirement from Windows.
Aye.
Nothing is better than a good playlist to get lots of desk work done. Be that coding, writing, data entry, or grinding out AA points in EverQuest.
Music just gets me "in the zone" so I can focus on the task at hand while at the same time giving coworkers and spouses a visual cue to not interrupt you.
More than half of the documentation I've done for my company is a result of a few good playlists.
10 years from now, when Peter Jackson completes The Hobbit and New Line Cinema comes out with "The Lord of the Rings: Super Extended Special Ultimate Criterion Quartet Edition" with all 4 movies and 10 full discs of extended footage from all the assorted single-movie releases.
/sarcasm
Unlike your refrigerator, radio, television, or microwave, you can't just buy a computer today and expect it to run the latest software 2-4 years from now.
While your refrigerator, radio, television, or microwave can handle the latest in food and radio-broadcast entertainment, software has an ever-changing specification. The computer must conform to the software.
You can upgrade a computer to some extent, but eventually, the system bus speeds reach their peak (if the hardware itself hasn't died).
I'm all for upgrading a PC or "recycling" an old one to people who have less sophisticated needs for a computer.
Even a 486 or a Pre-G3 Power Macintosh can surf the web and do email.
But I'm a gamer and an enthusiast. I upgrade/rebuild my rig constantly, and as far as I know, only my basement suffers from the aggregation of old parts... at least the ones I can't use to build mini Linux PCs.
Real has no case against Microsoft.
Where do you draw the line between competition and monopoly? In the early 1990s, Microsoft delivered an OS (Windows 3.x) with some bundled accessories, including Windows Media Player.
Does anyone honestly expect Microsoft to not upgrade the bundled accessories when they upgrade the OS?
Paintbrush can save JPEGs and GIFs now. Notepad can open large text files. Wordpad can now open more embedded Office-type items in doc files. So why can't Windows Media Player also improve?
The problem with Real is that they mismarketed their product during the critical dawn of Internet video streaming. Their product also had performance probl ---BUFFERING..0%....34%......78%....--- ems that made people turn to alternatives.
The only real claim to fame Real Player was actually had was in the early days when you could find South Park episodes small enough for download via modem.
TechNet Security Bulletin:
KB9765432 - Microsoft AV Security Update:
A vulnerability has been found in the Microsoft Anti-Virus utility that allows a virus in quarrantine to escape with Administrator access and grant a remote user full access to your computer.
KB9876543 - Internet Explorer Security Update:
A vulnerability has been found in the Pop-Up Blocker utility that allows a pop-up to side-step the pop-up blocker and use Active-X to gain Administrator access and grant a remote user full access to your computer.
KB9654321 - Windows Firewall Security Update:
A vulnerability has been found in the Windows Firewall utility that opens all of your ports, granting a remote user full access to your computer.
KB9543210 - Windows Messenger Service Security Update:
A vulnerability has been found in the Windows Messenger Service that allows a remote user to turn it back on and spam your computer with net sends.
The main problem is that, while Bluetooth may have been in technical news since 1997, it has yet to catch in where it counts: Joe Sixpack.
Meanwhile Wireless-A, -B, and -G have all zipped by technical board rooms and appeared on store shelves at Wal-Mart 2-3 years ago.
Who cares if your new Verizon Wireless phone has "Bluetooth wireless" capability written on its box? Joe Sixpack has never heard of it, and probably doesn't care to find out. He already has seen "wireless" at Wal-Mart, and to him it's "teh old".
Seeing how easily that star was ripped apart (albeit as an artist's animation) made me think of what it must have been like for any life living on a planet orbiting that star.
Especially any sentient, self-aware, intelligent life.
Makes you wonder if that will ever happen to our star.
I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't help but to think of last year's power line-related blackout when I read this article.
(Talk about your netsplits...)
I would wonder whether the data traffic on power lines could contribute (or cause) a blackout, or, worse, during a thunderstorm, NICs could seriously be fried.
The BBC's ignorance in its story isn't surprising. Just because a Windows virus targets SCO doesn't mean that it was written by pro-Linux advocates or that the pro-Linux and open source community supports, condones, or endorses the actions of MyDoom.
That's like the media's tendency to portray that all Muslims support and endorse acts of terrorism against the United States. While some terrorists may be Muslims, the worldwide Muslim community and even the religion itself does not condone or endorse the acts of terrorism.
The MyDoom virus is best described as "Misdirected Flamebait".
I wouldn't be surprised if SCO crafted MyDoom themselves, just adjust the public's opinions of SCO and the Linux/Open Source community in favor of SCO.
And the media played right into SCO's hands.
I couldn't agree with you more.
Microsoft knows that above anything else, Linux wins in the price of obtaining it (~free).
They know that it's only a matter of time before Linux server management becomes easy enough for uncertified sysadmins to manage them at the same cost as managing a Windows server environment. (some might argue that time is right now).
Even more, Microsoft knows that, somewhere between now and Longhorn's release, someone out there probably will come out with a Linux client desktop UI w/office suite that's as easy and intuitive for Joe Sixpack to use.
The day Joe Sixpack can boot up a Linux box and dial-up, surf the web, send emails, install software, burn CDs and play Windows games (via a zero-config version of Wine) using a FREE OS and open source software, Micrsoft will be doomed.
I hope and pray that the open source community makes the most out of these upcoming, critical years before Longhorn.
Who knows, one day we might have an uber Knoppix-like live-DVD distro that does everything I've mentioned here.... for FREE. Then get some weathy entrepeneur to mail the discs out AOL-style to everyone in the world.
That's my dream anyway.
Perhaps. In terms of Physics, every time a spacecraft/probe uses a planet to get a gravity-assist (to conserve fuel, etc), the planet's rotation slows by some amount. Like 1 foot per 1 trillion years.
So maybe all our Earth-based gravity assists for all the probes, shuttles, and satellites have collectively slowed the Earth down enough to = 1 second?
Apple has always stated that there is a Megahertz myth when comparing computer platforms, to which I agree.
However, non-technical people are still buying Intel/AMD-based computers because they have the largest processor speed posted on the shelf (More MHz/GHz = more power, right?).
It's interesting that Apple's upcoming 3+GHz G5 processors will now tout the same speed numbers as Intel/AMD chips.
Surprisingly enough, if "3.xGHz" is on the Mac's box, Apple just might win a few Joe Sixpacks and a few PC converts.
Only time will tell.
"Mera juta hai Japani,
...these Bollywood films are quite catchy!
Ye pantloon Englishstani,
Sarpe lahl topi Russi,
Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani.."
It will only be a matter of time until whatever TSR/service that launches the ads get mangled by user-installed software, spyware/viruses, or the general Windows wear & tear of use.
Instead of getting an advertisement every 20 minutes, you'd get a missing DLL error message, illegal operation pop-up, or, even worse, a BSOD.
Nothing like getting a BSOD while ordering plane tickets online...
This will add a whole new dimension to "phone sex".
If the IRS added a line to contribute funds to NASA, I would gladly donate money to them during tax time every year.
Even if people just donated $1 on their tax forms, imagine how much money that would generate for NASA.
In fact, they can replace the "presidential campaign fund" line with the NASA one. (I think they collect enough campaign funds with $1000/per plate dinners year round.) It would be a much better use of ink.
Hopefully the low price tag will convince people still using WebTV to actually purchase a personal computer.
I can see this as being killer for grandparents and others living on fixed incomes.
The system specs are decent, considering the target audience is probably not going to be encoding digital video, compiling code, or running photoshop.
The office suite is a nice touch. It sucks to get emailed a MS Office document and not being able to open them in anything but WordPad. I get so many tech support calls related to people not being able to open MS Office attachments. If the AOL office suite includes Excel and PowerPoint clones, all the better.
Microsoft is in the business of making money. Apparently, they saw the use of cross-platform sharing via flash devices using the FAT filesystem as a threat to the Microsoft monopoly.
Since they cannot stop third-party manufacturers from developing devices compatible with the FAT filesystem, they decided to just make a few thousand bucks off of them by enforcing their patents on the FAT filesystem.
Clever, if not greedy.
This will put the poorer manufacturers out of business, because there's no way you can sell a flash drive unformatted and expect the consumer to format it.
This is why letting one company become the sole innovator (in Joe Windowsuser's eyes) is bad for the tech industry. The anti-trust trials in the US showed that the US Government is powerless and slow to stop this monopilized stifling of innovation. Instead, Congress should open a Federal-level organization devoted to open source software development, including operating system and office suite software, then let taxes feed the organization.
At then, we'd have another large-sized innovator to put Microsoft on alert, and in check.
You can't just run AdAware and expect the removal process to be complete. There's still much that has to be done, especially registry-wise, or else there might be the kinds of errors mentioned. The first thing to do is try to uninstall as much of the spyware as possible from the Add/Remove Programs Applet. This kills most of the registry keys and files that pop up errors after spyware is removed.
n
n
Once that's done, run AdAware. AdAware should clear out much of the rest of the files, processes, and registry entries.
After the AdAware process, remove spyware startup registry keys from:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ru
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ru
And from the appropriate Start Menu Startup folders (both the user's and the "All Users" account's).
Next, check the HOSTS file for any miscreant entries and delete them as necessary.
Reboot.
Check for any spyware processes and hunt them down with the Search tool, deleting the files. Stop and remove any spywre processes remaining.
Snoop around in your Program Files folder and look for any program folders that correspond to the spyware you uninstalled via Add/Remove Programs or via AdAware. Delete them.
Reboot.
If all is well, perform a full anti-virus scan of the machine to make sure there are no viruses.
If you do all of this, the machine can pretty much come out better off than it was before.
I almost always wait until commercial breaks to do something away from the tube, i.e. go to the bathroom, microwaving food, putting food plates away, switching from one room to another room, etc. So I actually never watch television commercials anyway.
The advertisers make up for it though when they force you to watch advertisements during the opening previews at movie theaters and specially coded DVDs that force you to watch previews before allowing you to access to the DVD's menu (though you can fast forward).
Never underestimate the power of being able to make a midnight bathroom run, then suddenly get the desire to watch Office Space on DVD at 3:51am, in your boxers, looking like crap, with no money in your wallet, and no ambition to find/venture_out_to a 24/hr rental store.
That's the real value of owning the DVD versus renting it.
Only when reciting alphanumeric activation codes... (Good luck activating Quark 6 for OS X by phone.)
Also, speaking to someone who speaks your language naturally and responds naturally sounds much more sympathetic than scripted or "buffer" responses.