I'm sure this was the intended effect posited in a board room somewhere.
The "over the air" hold outs will see how bad life without cable or satellite and will have no choice but to buy a subscription TV service or else they cannot watch Dancing with the Stars anymore.
Let us not forget that Everquest II was the only MMORPG to offer a slash pizza command a few years ago that opened up a browser window for you to place an online Pizza Hut order.
Research (at the time) must have indicated that there was a market for such a command.
As much as I think living in hurricane zones is a bad idea, New Orleans is a major US port that has to have onsite personnel to manage shipments going in/out of the Mississippi river.
That personnel has to have a nearby place to live, shop, & recreate.
If New Orleans does get smashed up again, I would hope they could do as old European cultures did: build the new city on a layer above the old one, using the old city as both foundation and a riser.
Alas, construction of that magnitude is far too costly and takes far too long. Ironicly, its probably cheaper to just repair/rebuild the existing site after each major storm and just hoping they get a decades-long break again.
I'm a 12-year veteran of IT support and systems administration. I worked in a college campus that had several tiers of IT staff, one for each "school" within the campus, and then a mail group for generic stuff. Each "school" would have about 5-10 IT staff and 3-4 managers. As long as something cost less than $500, much of it was cake and didn't require a commitee.
I also worked at a newspaper with 200 employees where I was the only IT person. Being alone and on-call for systems and user issues in a 24/7 newspaper operation was the pits.
A few things I have observed with places I've worked or have friends at are:
After the Enron fiasco and the resulting Sarbanes-Oxley "controls" and documentation, many IT departments balooned to include "IT" people who had to bookkeep all the software licenses, print logs, and fill out paperwork and not do any actual IT support or administration at all. Keeping all that crap tracked was enough of a full-time job.
Business that charge credit cards get a double-dose of it, having to hire staff to make them PCI compliant and maintain the databases, etc. for any new PCI "controls" that get invented each year as well as checking user desktops for post-it notes with client credit card info.
Ever since Macs have had Firewire ports, you can boot a Mac holding down the T key and its hard disk become accessible via Firewire cable on another Mac. Mac OS X setup even prompts you to do this if you're migrating settings & data from one Mac to another.
Observing that the downloader is only required for the purchase of albums, the downloader is most likely there for customer service. Some people have really slow or unstable ISP services (dial-up or the low-end 128KB DSL, etc.) and/or slow and unstable Windows PCs. And may not be able to complete the download at the time of sale.
I assume the download client receives a list of files to download, all the md5/checksum info, and likely a valid session "cookie" to say its OK to download the list of files (once per file), even if the downloads are happening long after the time of purchase.
Also, the client is a good way to ensure delivery. If you buy a single MP3 file, your browser's MIME settings may attempt to play the MP3 as it downloads, storing the download in a temporary browser cache. Joe Sixpack will think he's been had. The download client prevents this and downloads the file properly, and even automatically importing it into an iTunes library.
Without such a client, Joe SpywarePC and Jane Dial-Up will likely encounter problems completing their full paid-for download and call/e-mail Amazon to complain.
The Slashdot audience likely does not require the client for the above reasons, but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of the non-Slashdot readers out there likely do.
And finally, the user himself can execute it. And, believe it or not, this is the most used and most successful way of infecting a machine. In other words, the main security problem is not in the machine. It's in front of it.
Indeed. When I worked in IT support for 12 years, I cleaned up my fair share of user-executed virus/trojan attachments with such fun names as (paraphrasing, it's been a while) SnowWhiteNakedPics.exe, YourSecretAdmirer.exe, and my favorite, FilthyWhores.exe.
The best was that these were often run by people with high-level or otherwise revered/critical positions within the companies I provided support for...
Back in the day, the NES was sold in a "Power Set" that included the NES, the Zapper light gun, and a mat. The console came with a triple-game cart featuring Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, and World-Class Track Meet. The last game used the mat for its controller.
Nintendo's vision was that you'd play World-Class Track Meet by running/jumping in place on the mat to simulate the necessary running and jumping in events.
People eventually realized they could just cheat by pounding down on the mat with their fists, instead.
I suspect many Wii games, especially Wii Fit will be likewise be "cheated" by using the remote in ways that may go against Nintendo's original vision.
Despite having access to the original consoles and carts (in boxes stored somewhere in the house) and emulators/roms, I still picked up quite a few VC games: Super Mario Bros. (NES), Legend of Zelda (NES), Castlevania (NES), Elevator Action (NES), F-Zero (SNES), Super Castlevania IV (SNES), Super Mario World (SNES), Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis), Kid Chameleon (Genesis), and Splatterhouse (TG-16), so far.
I like VC games because I can play them when I am already in the mood to play a console game, and they save right where I pressed the Home button (in many of these games, there was no save feature and you had to play through the entire game in one sitting!).
I no longer have to dig up the old console, probably having to clean the cart before trying to boot it, or messing with the questionable legality of emulators/roms for computers.
When 2D fighting games were all the rage, Sega released a 6-button controller to support Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and their own Eternal Champions game. The buttons were A,B,C,X,Y,Z (and of course, START).
The controller actually had a 7th button, called "Mode", which was used to force the controller to function as a 3-button controller (A=X, B=Y, C=Z) for a few old games that freaked when booted with a 6-button controller plugged in (Ms. PacMan, for example).
The 6-button controller was the new default button sceme, even appearing on the Nomad portable.
1. *Cold Boot*, immediately holding down the Apple + Option + O + F keys. Your Mac will boot into Open Firmware.
2. Type reset-nvram and hit Enter.
3. Type reset-all and hit Enter. Your Mac will restart.
4. Immediately hold down the Apple + Option + P + R keys. Your Mac will start-up chime and then restart again. Continue to keep the keys down until you hear the start-up chime a total of 3 times and then release the keys to start up normally.
If your Adobe Suite still misbehaves, try deleting their Preferences and starting with Factory settings. If they still misbehave, try reinstalling them.
(for example, the number of clicks it takes to insert a picture into a Word document)
Some people use Word as if it were a page layout program like InDesign and QuarkXPress. With this as a cue, Microsoft could have very easily given Word a picture box tool to slimply select from the toolbar, then allow the user to drag a rectangular box. Finally, a keyboard command like Control+E to raise a small filesystem dialogue window to choose the picture you want to insert, maybe even a "source list" in the left margin of the dialogue window to switch between filesystem and pre-installed Office Clip art.
Seeing as how IE7 is listed as a Critical Update, many home users "downloaded" IE7 as part of their visit to Windows Update or through Automatic Updates. I doubt many home users downloaded the IE7-blocking tool.. Granted they had to click through a wizard to install the downloaded update, but with it being labeled as "Critical", I'd imagine many just clicked through the wizard to get the update installed to be "secure."
I think it's more like 98M forced downloads of IE7 and 2M deliberately-installed downloads of IE7.
I got used to using pico for years. It was installed on all the UNIX systems I worked with. Fast forward many years when I had to edit a config file on a UNIX server that didn't have pico installed. -- I had to google for vi commands...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure this was the intended effect posited in a board room somewhere.
The "over the air" hold outs will see how bad life without cable or satellite and will have no choice but to buy a subscription TV service or else they cannot watch Dancing with the Stars anymore.
Unfortunately, the Gamecube game has the jump & fire buttons swapped. Years of muscle memory down the drain.
This is curious..
Let us not forget that Everquest II was the only MMORPG to offer a slash pizza command a few years ago that opened up a browser window for you to place an online Pizza Hut order.
Research (at the time) must have indicated that there was a market for such a command.
As much as I think living in hurricane zones is a bad idea, New Orleans is a major US port that has to have onsite personnel to manage shipments going in/out of the Mississippi river.
That personnel has to have a nearby place to live, shop, & recreate.
If New Orleans does get smashed up again, I would hope they could do as old European cultures did: build the new city on a layer above the old one, using the old city as both foundation and a riser.
Alas, construction of that magnitude is far too costly and takes far too long. Ironicly, its probably cheaper to just repair/rebuild the existing site after each major storm and just hoping they get a decades-long break again.
That USB drive had to have been connected to a PC on Earth to get files moved onto it. So the Earthly PC must also have out of date on A/V signatures.
User laziness on file management/Anti-virus in a Windows environment is the issue here.
I'm a 12-year veteran of IT support and systems administration. I worked in a college campus that had several tiers of IT staff, one for each "school" within the campus, and then a mail group for generic stuff. Each "school" would have about 5-10 IT staff and 3-4 managers. As long as something cost less than $500, much of it was cake and didn't require a commitee.
I also worked at a newspaper with 200 employees where I was the only IT person. Being alone and on-call for systems and user issues in a 24/7 newspaper operation was the pits.
A few things I have observed with places I've worked or have friends at are:
After the Enron fiasco and the resulting Sarbanes-Oxley "controls" and documentation, many IT departments balooned to include "IT" people who had to bookkeep all the software licenses, print logs, and fill out paperwork and not do any actual IT support or administration at all. Keeping all that crap tracked was enough of a full-time job.
Business that charge credit cards get a double-dose of it, having to hire staff to make them PCI compliant and maintain the databases, etc. for any new PCI "controls" that get invented each year as well as checking user desktops for post-it notes with client credit card info.
They called the dirt layer drudged up while driving in Meridani (Opportunity's site) "brine". But that's because it's a salty, slightly moist soil.
Not sure what that means for the polar region's dirt, but just tossing that out there.
Looks like Sony's "PS9" commercial, where a guy takes a pill and hallucinates his gameplay is one step closer to reality.
YouTube link to commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CZXZM6TFb4/
Ever since Macs have had Firewire ports, you can boot a Mac holding down the T key and its hard disk become accessible via Firewire cable on another Mac. Mac OS X setup even prompts you to do this if you're migrating settings & data from one Mac to another.
Many of the "vulnerable" PCs are Intel Macs runing Windows.
Observing that the downloader is only required for the purchase of albums, the downloader is most likely there for customer service. Some people have really slow or unstable ISP services (dial-up or the low-end 128KB DSL, etc.) and/or slow and unstable Windows PCs. And may not be able to complete the download at the time of sale.
I assume the download client receives a list of files to download, all the md5/checksum info, and likely a valid session "cookie" to say its OK to download the list of files (once per file), even if the downloads are happening long after the time of purchase.
Also, the client is a good way to ensure delivery. If you buy a single MP3 file, your browser's MIME settings may attempt to play the MP3 as it downloads, storing the download in a temporary browser cache. Joe Sixpack will think he's been had. The download client prevents this and downloads the file properly, and even automatically importing it into an iTunes library.
Without such a client, Joe SpywarePC and Jane Dial-Up will likely encounter problems completing their full paid-for download and call/e-mail Amazon to complain.
The Slashdot audience likely does not require the client for the above reasons, but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of the non-Slashdot readers out there likely do.
...it's just built into the iTunes media player application since version 4.
Indeed. When I worked in IT support for 12 years, I cleaned up my fair share of user-executed virus/trojan attachments with such fun names as (paraphrasing, it's been a while) SnowWhiteNakedPics.exe, YourSecretAdmirer.exe, and my favorite, FilthyWhores.exe.
The best was that these were often run by people with high-level or otherwise revered/critical positions within the companies I provided support for...
Wrong. Actually any online store that sells digital downloads as un-DRM'd MP3s can work with iTunes and iPods.
In fact, Amazon MP3's download client even has a preference option for automatically importing Amazon MP3 purchases into your iTunes library.
Back in the day, the NES was sold in a "Power Set" that included the NES, the Zapper light gun, and a mat. The console came with a triple-game cart featuring Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, and World-Class Track Meet. The last game used the mat for its controller.
Nintendo's vision was that you'd play World-Class Track Meet by running/jumping in place on the mat to simulate the necessary running and jumping in events.
People eventually realized they could just cheat by pounding down on the mat with their fists, instead.
I suspect many Wii games, especially Wii Fit will be likewise be "cheated" by using the remote in ways that may go against Nintendo's original vision.
Despite having access to the original consoles and carts (in boxes stored somewhere in the house) and emulators/roms, I still picked up quite a few VC games: Super Mario Bros. (NES), Legend of Zelda (NES), Castlevania (NES), Elevator Action (NES), F-Zero (SNES), Super Castlevania IV (SNES), Super Mario World (SNES), Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis), Kid Chameleon (Genesis), and Splatterhouse (TG-16), so far.
I like VC games because I can play them when I am already in the mood to play a console game, and they save right where I pressed the Home button (in many of these games, there was no save feature and you had to play through the entire game in one sitting!).
I no longer have to dig up the old console, probably having to clean the cart before trying to boot it, or messing with the questionable legality of emulators/roms for computers.
It's worth the few bucks to me.
When 2D fighting games were all the rage, Sega released a 6-button controller to support Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and their own Eternal Champions game. The buttons were A,B,C,X,Y,Z (and of course, START).
The controller actually had a 7th button, called "Mode", which was used to force the controller to function as a 3-button controller (A=X, B=Y, C=Z) for a few old games that freaked when booted with a 6-button controller plugged in (Ms. PacMan, for example).
The 6-button controller was the new default button sceme, even appearing on the Nomad portable.
Opera could be a good second target. Not too much money, but not too small a company.
These patent lawsuits are getting ridiculous.
And it's pretty damn good at it. Spread the word.
If the AppleTV allows you to install QuickTime plugins, you should be all set for video format support between Perian and Flip4Mac.
1. *Cold Boot*, immediately holding down the Apple + Option + O + F keys. Your Mac will boot into Open Firmware.
2. Type reset-nvram and hit Enter.
3. Type reset-all and hit Enter. Your Mac will restart.
4. Immediately hold down the Apple + Option + P + R keys. Your Mac will start-up chime and then restart again. Continue to keep the keys down until you hear the start-up chime a total of 3 times and then release the keys to start up normally.
If your Adobe Suite still misbehaves, try deleting their Preferences and starting with Factory settings. If they still misbehave, try reinstalling them.
(for example, the number of clicks it takes to insert a picture into a Word document)
Some people use Word as if it were a page layout program like InDesign and QuarkXPress. With this as a cue, Microsoft could have very easily given Word a picture box tool to slimply select from the toolbar, then allow the user to drag a rectangular box. Finally, a keyboard command like Control+E to raise a small filesystem dialogue window to choose the picture you want to insert, maybe even a "source list" in the left margin of the dialogue window to switch between filesystem and pre-installed Office Clip art.
Seeing as how IE7 is listed as a Critical Update, many home users "downloaded" IE7 as part of their visit to Windows Update or through Automatic Updates. I doubt many home users downloaded the IE7-blocking tool.. Granted they had to click through a wizard to install the downloaded update, but with it being labeled as "Critical", I'd imagine many just clicked through the wizard to get the update installed to be "secure."
I think it's more like 98M forced downloads of IE7 and 2M deliberately-installed downloads of IE7.
I got used to using pico for years. It was installed on all the UNIX systems I worked with. Fast forward many years when I had to edit a config file on a UNIX server that didn't have pico installed. -- I had to google for vi commands...
They may as well, seeing as they've posted no real Apple bugs to date.