Standard agreement with us for high-value software from a vendor is that they place source code, manuals, etc into legal escrow. We have an agreement that if they go bust then we get the code - then we at least have a fighting chance of either fixing it ourselves or paying an external specialist to support it from that point onwards. This is really common...
The contract is between buyer and retailer, not buyer and manufacturer. You may well have a 12 month warranty with the manufacturer, but using this is not optimal. Many retailers will insist this is the only way to get problems rectified, but if you do this you lose the better protection of the warranty between retailer and buyer. Dig in, quote the Sale of Goods Act, go see Citizens' Advice if necessary, and use the free online UK small claims court form to raise a case against them electronically. Usually this latter thing alone is enough to get them to cave as they'll receive a document that basically says "don't show up in court or ignore this and you're legally liable".
Don't put up with it. They sold you a product, it's failed. Get them to replace/repair and KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.
Say you have an ECG machine. It's hooked up via sticky contact pads to your chest and is measuring the delicate flickerings of life in your body. It's doing this because it's trying to spot the *tiny* irregularities that could indicate Bad Things.
You can't magically design a machine that's picking up miniscule electrical currents like this and have it unaffected when some idiot brings in a portable radio transceiver and cranks it up nearby while they tell their wife what they want for dinner.
As I type, I'm within 30 feet of a ward full of such machines, and maybe a couple of hundred yards from the EEG devices that measure the brain's electrical activity. As we're testing today, I can wave my phone around and I can watch the interference it causes on the data being captured. Even when I'm not talking on the phone, it's checking in with the nearest base station periodically, and I can see that screwing the traces too. It's not causing those machines to break: but it's fvcking up the data that they're capturing - and that data is being captured as it's for diagnostic purposes. Screwing this up could have really bad consequences for someone.
A lot of UK schools offer a similar service as part of a virtual learning environment. It gives the school a reliable method of communicating with students outside of school, without insisting that they buy a laptop. Important calendar info (lesson times, exam times, school trips?) can be communicated and looked up at home on the family PC, or in school on a classroom PC. It allows access to coursework, online marking, and school educational material from home.
I'm sure they're not just providing it for the kids to play with in a way entirely unrelated to education.
In the UK, phone tap evidence is not admissible in a court of law. This is presumably because if it *was* admissible then it could become a matter of public record, and the spooks wouldn't want that to happen.
Hence, it follows in this case that they almost certainly contained way more info than was used in court...
You have a phone, don't you? Do you leave it set to permanently divert to voicemail?
It's normal for email to be a primary method of communication in large companies. We don't worry about it. Use it like IM, if you need to.
...and you'll never get the users to manually stop the database.
I'd propose writing a log-in/log-out script that backs it up to the safest place you can find - local storage if off network, network storage if available. get the script to name the backup with the timestamp of when it was done - this way all you need to tell the users is "everytime you log off, it'll backup".
Ric
...it's not like this isn't happening already. Any professionally produced advertising will have pictures that have been tidied by photoshop at the ad agency already. Sure, it'd be false advertising to doctor these to remove building sites near holiday complexes, etc, but it's not like it can't and isn't being easily done right now.
I've a Macbook and don't really like the keyboard. It's OK, but I wouldn't want to do any serious typing on it: it's not got enough tactile feedback. By "serious", I mean 70wpm+ for extended periods.
Not many people these days are touch-typists and I think those of us that are, have higher standards of what constitutes "good" than those that don't. I guess it's not surprising that MB keyboards aren't aimed at us, however.
cheap lock mechanisms that are readily bypassed by picking or force.
I don't think anyone makes an individual RFID or biometric doorlock that stands up to scrutiny.
Bear in mind your home insurance may be invalidated if you fit a poor quality lock...
Agree 100% from an FDA perspective, too.
Your bigger worry is going to be the paperwork and audit trail for document versioning control, change control and user accountability. Sure, you may have a system that documents who did what, but if you don't have the "who" and the "what" buttoned down, it's of questionable use.
Talk to the auditors and find out what they actually *need*. If necessary, pull in a consultant who specialises in your area to help: costs of non-compliance can be *really really bad*.
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Standard agreement with us for high-value software from a vendor is that they place source code, manuals, etc into legal escrow. We have an agreement that if they go bust then we get the code - then we at least have a fighting chance of either fixing it ourselves or paying an external specialist to support it from that point onwards. This is really common...
Don't put up with it. They sold you a product, it's failed. Get them to replace/repair and KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.
you misspelled "arseholes"
Say you have an ECG machine. It's hooked up via sticky contact pads to your chest and is measuring the delicate flickerings of life in your body. It's doing this because it's trying to spot the *tiny* irregularities that could indicate Bad Things.
You can't magically design a machine that's picking up miniscule electrical currents like this and have it unaffected when some idiot brings in a portable radio transceiver and cranks it up nearby while they tell their wife what they want for dinner.
As I type, I'm within 30 feet of a ward full of such machines, and maybe a couple of hundred yards from the EEG devices that measure the brain's electrical activity. As we're testing today, I can wave my phone around and I can watch the interference it causes on the data being captured. Even when I'm not talking on the phone, it's checking in with the nearest base station periodically, and I can see that screwing the traces too. It's not causing those machines to break: but it's fvcking up the data that they're capturing - and that data is being captured as it's for diagnostic purposes. Screwing this up could have really bad consequences for someone.
This is not rocket science.
It's a good job we dropped a weapon that was only going to affect the Japanese military then, isn't it? Oh wait a second...
A lot of UK schools offer a similar service as part of a virtual learning environment. It gives the school a reliable method of communicating with students outside of school, without insisting that they buy a laptop. Important calendar info (lesson times, exam times, school trips?) can be communicated and looked up at home on the family PC, or in school on a classroom PC. It allows access to coursework, online marking, and school educational material from home.
I'm sure they're not just providing it for the kids to play with in a way entirely unrelated to education.
I smell like peyote and have a drumming circle, you insensitive clod!
...if you were inclined, then this would probably put a big dent in the ISPs share price...
For the sake of our UK readers, you might want to rethink that term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonce_(slang)
Fixed that for you.
Liar!
Not for F1, it isn't. ITV, a commercial station, hold the rights for that and they do show commercials. Their coverage is pretty great, though.
...so we can segment our networks so they don't *all* get hosed when something like this happens?
In the UK, phone tap evidence is not admissible in a court of law. This is presumably because if it *was* admissible then it could become a matter of public record, and the spooks wouldn't want that to happen.
Hence, it follows in this case that they almost certainly contained way more info than was used in court...
You have a phone, don't you? Do you leave it set to permanently divert to voicemail?
It's normal for email to be a primary method of communication in large companies. We don't worry about it. Use it like IM, if you need to.
...so share them out with permissions so that only the account that backuppc runs under can access them. For heavens sake.
...and you'll never get the users to manually stop the database.
I'd propose writing a log-in/log-out script that backs it up to the safest place you can find - local storage if off network, network storage if available. get the script to name the backup with the timestamp of when it was done - this way all you need to tell the users is "everytime you log off, it'll backup". Ric
...smaller than a Nomad. Lame.
...and to never click a link without checking its target first.That was Goatse.cx
...it's not like this isn't happening already. Any professionally produced advertising will have pictures that have been tidied by photoshop at the ad agency already. Sure, it'd be false advertising to doctor these to remove building sites near holiday complexes, etc, but it's not like it can't and isn't being easily done right now.
Switzerland doesn't get involved. They'll remain neutral and bank the winner's fee for them.
oh, right about now: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=264967&cid=201 67001
I've a Macbook and don't really like the keyboard. It's OK, but I wouldn't want to do any serious typing on it: it's not got enough tactile feedback. By "serious", I mean 70wpm+ for extended periods.
Not many people these days are touch-typists and I think those of us that are, have higher standards of what constitutes "good" than those that don't. I guess it's not surprising that MB keyboards aren't aimed at us, however.
cheap lock mechanisms that are readily bypassed by picking or force.
I don't think anyone makes an individual RFID or biometric doorlock that stands up to scrutiny.
Bear in mind your home insurance may be invalidated if you fit a poor quality lock...
Agree 100% from an FDA perspective, too.
Your bigger worry is going to be the paperwork and audit trail for document versioning control, change control and user accountability. Sure, you may have a system that documents who did what, but if you don't have the "who" and the "what" buttoned down, it's of questionable use.
Talk to the auditors and find out what they actually *need*. If necessary, pull in a consultant who specialises in your area to help: costs of non-compliance can be *really really bad*.