Hm, in this instance what one can do is open a separate terminal session via ctrl+alt+function_key and do any root work from there. The difficulty with that in my case would be using Mandrake ( yes, I am Mandrake user ) Control Center's GUI in install packages. That can only be accessed via the GUI, and requires you enter the root password to work.
You confused me on this one. The hosts file maps a hostname to an IP address. So what you are doing is assigning an alternate IP address to a domain/hostname. i.e. www.microsoft.com = 127.0.0.1 . So, the advertising sites would have to change their domain names to get around the host file method.
That said, host files only block exact names, so re-mapping www.microsoft.com to another IP address will not affect me.www.microsoft.com , as it is not an exact match.
Just as a warning, is it usually better speed-wise to re-map hostnames to the IP of a running web server,even a small one running on your own computer. The reason for this is your browser requests a file ( say, a banner ad ) from a system that either does not exist or is not running a web server, it will wait until the timeout expires before continuing to load the page. If it requests the same file but gets a quick "I don't have this file" response from the web server, it will continue loading the page right away.
Have you heard of the Macromedia Flash blocker add-on for Mozilla? Has anyone? I would like to install it if someone has a link ( I use Mozilla ). Oh, and I agree 100% on the Macromedia Flash nuisance, I don't have it installed, but my friends keeps sending me "cool" links to sites that are Flash only. If a browser add-on could identify links to flash content and block it based upon filter settings, that would cool.
Perhaps User Mode Linux would work? I haven't tried it, but the gist is you can run instances of Linux kernels on top of the current running kernel. Supposedly it is a good method for testing different kernels.
When you say "runs as root" it is kind of vague. Do you mean your primary logon account is root? To clarify my question, let me explain how I do it.
1) Logon to bash shell myself ( not root ) 2) start up xwindows ( I use KDE for desktop manager ) 3) Open up two terminal sessions 4) Mount my USB drive if I need it ( mount / whatever ). 5)Start up common programs ( Evolution, XChat, Mozilla, Konqueror, Kate ).
I can pretty much do everything I need to do like this. I only need root to install applications or modify system configuration files, which happens once in a blue moon ).
Now, if I do need to logon as root, then I do it in a terminal session and do my work from there. What is a bit scary is I can copy & paste command lines from a program running as plain ol' non-priveleged user into the terminal window that is "su'd" as root. If a malicious program were somehow run that could identify the terminal session window and programmatically do copy/paste, I could see how that would be a hole.
For reboot I can just type "reboot" at the bash shell prompt. As far as shutting down goes, I almost never shutdown. However, for a full shutdown or even to go to a lower runlevel, I exit XWindows, su to root, and then enter the appopriate command ( init 1, shutdown -h, etc ).
Still wrong. If you pay for you Internet connection based upon the amount of bytes transmitted/received, and you won't know the web site is forcing an advertisement down your throat until you have already "consumed" the bandwidth to download it, then I say it is still wrong. *And* it wasn't up to the end user as to whether to dl the advertisement or not.
Now, that said, the end user can remember the site and choose not to go there again, but how much bandwidth ( money ) is it going to cost him before he has built up a decent "blacklist". Even then when he/she first visits a new site, there will be the chance they will get burned.
Sorry, there is no justification for forcing things ( ads and what not ) down end users throats. When you set up a web site or other service on the Internet, you do so with the understanding that it is going to cost you, and if anyone chooses to support the site ( financially or otherwise ), it is 100% their choice, not yours.
Lol, I remember that episode. And Homer asks why they are wrecking his office instead of paying him off, Bill Gates replies "You don't think I got rich by writing checks, do you?"
I agree. I hate when I am at work and I've just logged in to the users computer, I am prompted for a password to connect to a drive or a special service., and then I am typing typing my special admin password notepad or something pops up and my password is typed into that window ( not hidden, in front of the user ), and I have to backspace and remember to change my password immediately afterwards.
Very true. I remember a Slashdot story right after RIAA announced they were sending out lawsuit threats that P2P usage actually increased as a response to those threats. One of the more common explanations posted was that people wanted to get all they could before all the content was gone. The story was probably posted March/April 2002, I would have to do some searching to find it.
And to add a bit to the discussion, most courses require several papers, and if the student is plagiarizing every paper plus each paper is on a different subject, then I believe the student will be plagiarizing from different authors for each paper. From this I conclude that this student's work will have a writing style that jumps all over the place, making it obvious that he/she is plagiarizing.
Also the professor can ask a questionable student about his or her paper, putting them on the spot.
Even better the school's staff will most likely have access to all of the student's previous papers, to compare to each other looking for evidence of plagiarism.
All of that said, there are cheats such as Cliff's notes, online sites that sell research paper's, and the smart kid in class who will help you with your assignment. All of these resources will cause the students writing style to change, and if the student really did not due his research, a few well-placed questions will reveal this fairly quickly.
My first exploration outside of Windows was with FreeBSD 4.5. I ran it in a virtual machine on my Windows box, played with it, read about it, and finally decided to switch over to it. I loaded it on all of my systems and made a go of using it. But there were too many problems with hardware incompatibilities, in fact, my RAID controller went nutz and actually damaged 2 out of the four hard drives. My printer was not supported, so on, and so forth. After that I switched to Red Hat Linux, which still gave me a few learning curve problems, so I switched to Mandrake Linux and have been with it ever since. Just like in your case, I don't have system crashes on my servers, just on my workstation since that is the one I am always experimenting on ( different drivers, tweaks, etc ) but even then the crash is harmless, no data or hardware lost.
Sorry FreeBSD, you did your best, but sometimes your best just isn't good enough. I would say that if someone where migrating from Windows, they should move to Linux, not FreeBSD. If someone is already on FreeBSD, they should feel free to stay, as you probably have the kinks worked out for your particular environment.
Re:One thing I dislike about Linux community
on
BSD For Linux Users
·
· Score: 1
I think you are over generalizing, and actually I have heard this exact argument before, except it was targeted at FreeBSd. I am an avid Linux user and have not met any fellow enthusiasts who match the traits you laid out.
But don't just listen to my take on the situation, read this thread for yourself and see how Linux users promote their favorite OS-> http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20679
Interesting, because I don't see "*.htm" anywhere in the URL "http://www.google.com". The default page's extension for that site could be.asp,.shtml, or any number of things.
Re:Anybody have torrent links?
on
Mozilla 1.6 Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Edonkey has it.:) I actually use emule on Windows XP to access the Overture ( I think that is the name) network. Lots of legal stuff there. Plenty.
You got it. My sensei made a big deal about that when my swordfighting class went to see Godzilla 2000 or whatever the latest version was. Now, if they are trying to pronounce the English word "Mozilla", then the poster is correct. If they are saying it in Japanese, then you are ( most ) correct. Dang, I am so analytical today.
I was hopeful for Winamp 3, but my hopes were dashed against the rocks. That said, I have not tried 5 yet, but after reading this thread I am planning on it. Creative Labs media player ( I forget the name ) used to have the capability of playing audio and video files, and you could use playlists for both. I don't know why they took the video feature out of later versions, maybe it was too hard to support or something. Anyway, perhaps Winamp 5 will save the day. It would be nice to have Mplayer-type functionality on Windows one day, though I would accept it if started supporting only open standards, and slowly advanced ( via plugins, perhaps ) to be able to play quicktime, wm*, realmedia, etc.
There have been companies that have attempted this and failed. And even had they succeeded it would be harder to switch to a non-free solution than a combination of free players to get the job done.
No flames. Do realize that as long as Linux is as modular and open as it is people will create their own distros, desktop managers, and so on. However, A computer reseller can standardize on a single distro desktop manager, a company can also. I assume when you limit your mention of desktop managers to only KDE/Gnome that you are aware that there are many more out there.
About Linux using Windows...well, he is a developer, and if you are writing code to run on a specific platform, you need access to that platform to as a minimum test it on that platform. I am learning Trolltech QT, and I use a USB drive to quickly move my source code between my Linux and Windows XP boxes in order to test it on that platform. The code itself is platform neutral, but it does look different on each OS and so I need to know if that will cause any problems.
Another reason you may need access to more than one OS is while you use one as your "main", the other is necessary because that one specific app you need only runs on the other OS. You may have plans on writing a replacement for it, but until then you have the other OS around as a temporary fix.
Now, how does all this tie in to Linux as a Desktop OS? From the standpoint of "switching" over from Windows to Linux it can be very confusing, true enough. Resellers can standardize and provide support which would make it easier for end users to find answers to their questions. Companies can do the same.
Perhaps a better answer is for a consortium of businesses to work together to build a "Corporate" linux distribution. Not only would this distro cater to corporate users, it would provide tools to make it easier for IT staff to manage/support that distro. Something similar to MS Active Directory/Novell LDAP would work.
Home users who purchase from resellers could get a pre-installed distro supported by the reseller ( say, Dell ) and that would make it easier to use. People who rolled their own systems could still be
overwhelmed by the sheer number of distros available to them, but then again usually these types of people rolled their own just for the privilege of having such a choice.
One last thing ( that was mention above ) is standards. Not that all applications have to look the same, but their data should ( data files include documents, databases ) be standardized enough to move between applications of similar functionality.
All said, I feel Linux is ready for the desktop technologically, its the installed client base that is lacking. If resellers and companies pick up on Linux distros, home usage and software development for Linux will skyrocket. There will be new problems to overcome as it becomes more popular, but these are normal "growing pains"
Hmm? What are all those letter shaped things on the screen? I click on the bright underlined thingies and the screen changes, cool. Look at all those flashing banner ads, pretty pictures,...ohhhh...a flash movie.
Are you sure you need to be able to read to use the internet?
Well, it works well except it encrypts the files you transfer to your Windows computer from the Linux/Unix server, and to decrypt them you have to pay SCO for the decryption algorithm. Other than that is it free.
However, if you migrate your Unix/Linux boxes to MS Windows you can have the decryption algorithm for free. Who said MS wasn't fair?
"The reproduction must be one-sided, and all materials, including graphic files that were used to make the reproduction, must be destroyed afterward."
Who else read this and thought it meant you have to destroy the $20 bill you were copying too? If someone scanned in the currency and sent you the image file to use in Photoshop, would you have to ensure they destroyed their $20 bill?
Ed: Thanks for the $20 bill image. Bob: No problem. Ed: Can I see the original? Bob: Sure, here you go. Ed: Bob: What the hell are you doing? Ed: Bob: oh. Okay. You owe me $20 though.
I agree absolutely. This is a case where companies/organizations missed the boat and instead of paying the cost for being "a day late and a dollar short", they want the law to step in and just make everything better. Just using the term "cybersquatting" instead something like the Wall Street term "investing in futures" of a domain name shows how the media is manipulating public opinion by attaching a stigma to the act of purchasing a domain name in hopes that one day it will hold more value than when it was originally purchased.
Doesn't that sound a whole lot like purchasing stock, land, collectibles, or any other number of things in hopes it can be sold for a higher price later on? The difference I see is the domain names have to be re-registered periodically, oh, and the fact that they are not physical property. However, I personaly don't see cybersquatting being a problem, but rather it is the symptom of one. What problem? A common one for the Internet where the domain name registration system was not designed to account for the possibility of groups contending ( ok, fighting ) over domain names, or for names to be registered on a basis of greed and not a basis of need.
Solution? Put some rubber bands and chewing gum in place to keep the problem from becoming worse, and rework the domain name registration system so that if you purchase a domain name according to the provisions of the new system, you own it, free and clear, and do not have to worry about being sued or otherwise harassed soley over the name itself.
LOL, I know enough about scripting I can write books on it, mostly I use Perl and vbscript in the Windows environment. For Unix/Linux its just Perl as I really don't want to spend time doing shell programming.
On your second point, I can demand until I am blue in the face, if the President of the IT group wants 4-5 people at a single site to have writes to Active Directory, then that is the way it's going to be. If he says there will be no Linux/Unix boxes on the company network ( hint, he said it ), then you can lose your job if you put one up. If he says you will not create custom scripts to solve problems and/or automate processes, its your job if you are caught doing so ( he said that, too ), now do you get the picture?
I have recommended solutions to many things that suck up too much time needless, put together prototype to show that it worked ( I risked setting up a Linux box to show the benefits of Samba/Apache/etc. ), I showed how using a non-MS browser like Mozilla would not only give a free popup-blocker, but also stop the active-x spyware programs dead in their tracks. I created a database driven web site that handled inventory ( using Perl and MySql to get rid of the dumb Excel spreadsheets everyone in the company uses. Do think ANY of these ideas were adopted? The answer is no. And nor will they. I don't know what logic drives the decisions in the company, but it isn't one that strives for efficiency. As a result, my solution are delegated for my own use only. I answer inventory queueries faster than anyone thanks to my inventory web site, I change passwords, unlock account, create and configure accounts all from the command line thanks to the Perl scripts I wrote that access MS Active Directory, and so on and so forth. I feel bad that while I can do something in 2 seconds while other admins waste time opening up a GUI application, navigating to the item they want to manager, and then click around clumsy interfaces, I realize that this is not my company, and if they choose to be stupid, that is their choice. They were given the reigns of the IT group, and both the decision and the consequences thereof are theirs to carry.
Oh, and I am working on Trolltech QT C++ apps now to make a nice GUI interface for my Perl scripts, because the few admins I can allow to use my tools are not command line savy, since I want them to use them ( scripts make sure the job gets done everytime, with no steps left out ). Eventually I may replace the Perl oart with pure C++ code to make it more uniform.
Slashdot Mirror
Hm, in this instance what one can do is open a separate terminal session via ctrl+alt+function_key and do any root work from there. The difficulty with that in my case would be using Mandrake ( yes, I am Mandrake user ) Control Center's GUI in install packages. That can only be accessed via the GUI, and requires you enter the root password to work.
You confused me on this one. The hosts file maps a hostname to an IP address. So what you are doing is assigning an alternate IP address to a domain/hostname. i.e. www.microsoft.com = 127.0.0.1 . So, the advertising sites would have to change their domain names to get around the host file method.
,even a small one running on your own computer. The reason for this is your browser requests a file ( say, a banner ad ) from a system that either does not exist or is not running a web server, it will wait until the timeout expires before continuing to load the page. If it requests the same file but gets a quick "I don't have this file" response from the web server, it will continue loading the page right away.
That said, host files only block exact names, so re-mapping www.microsoft.com to another IP address will not affect me.www.microsoft.com , as it is not an exact match.
Just as a warning, is it usually better speed-wise to re-map hostnames to the IP of a running web server
Have you heard of the Macromedia Flash blocker add-on for Mozilla? Has anyone? I would like to install it if someone has a link ( I use Mozilla ). Oh, and I agree 100% on the Macromedia Flash nuisance, I don't have it installed, but my friends keeps sending me "cool" links to sites that are Flash only. If a browser add-on could identify links to flash content and block it based upon filter settings, that would cool.
Perhaps User Mode Linux would work? I haven't tried it, but the gist is you can run instances of Linux kernels on top of the current running kernel. Supposedly it is a good method for testing different kernels.
When you say "runs as root" it is kind of vague. Do you mean your primary logon account is root? To clarify my question, let me explain how I do it.
.
1) Logon to bash shell myself ( not root )
2) start up xwindows ( I use KDE for desktop manager )
3) Open up two terminal sessions
4) Mount my USB drive if I need it ( mount / whatever ).
5)Start up common programs ( Evolution, XChat, Mozilla, Konqueror, Kate )
I can pretty much do everything I need to do like this. I only need root to install applications or modify system configuration files, which happens once in a blue moon ).
Now, if I do need to logon as root, then I do it in a terminal session and do my work from there. What is a bit scary is I can copy & paste command lines from a program running as plain ol' non-priveleged user into the terminal window that is "su'd" as root. If a malicious program were somehow run that could identify the terminal session window and programmatically do copy/paste, I could see how that would be a hole.
For reboot I can just type "reboot" at the bash shell prompt. As far as shutting down goes, I almost never shutdown. However, for a full shutdown or even to go to a lower runlevel, I exit XWindows, su to root, and then enter the appopriate command ( init 1, shutdown -h, etc ).
Still wrong. If you pay for you Internet connection based upon the amount of bytes transmitted/received, and you won't know the web site is forcing an advertisement down your throat until you have already "consumed" the bandwidth to download it, then I say it is still wrong. *And* it wasn't up to the end user as to whether to dl the advertisement or not.
Now, that said, the end user can remember the site and choose not to go there again, but how much bandwidth ( money ) is it going to cost him before he has built up a decent "blacklist". Even then when he/she first visits a new site, there will be the chance they will get burned.
Sorry, there is no justification for forcing things ( ads and what not ) down end users throats. When you set up a web site or other service on the Internet, you do so with the understanding that it is going to cost you, and if anyone chooses to support the site ( financially or otherwise ), it is 100% their choice, not yours.
When that day comes, I will know it's time to report to an insane asylum.
Lol, I remember that episode. And Homer asks why they are wrecking his office instead of paying him off, Bill Gates replies "You don't think I got rich by writing checks, do you?"
I agree. I hate when I am at work and I've just logged in to the users computer, I am prompted for a password to connect to a drive or a special service., and then I am typing typing my special admin password notepad or something pops up and my password is typed into that window ( not hidden, in front of the user ), and I have to backspace and remember to change my password immediately afterwards.
Pain in the arse. I tell you.
Very true. I remember a Slashdot story right after RIAA announced they were sending out lawsuit threats that P2P usage actually increased as a response to those threats. One of the more common explanations posted was that people wanted to get all they could before all the content was gone. The story was probably posted March/April 2002, I would have to do some searching to find it.
I heard its being used on the Microsoft Campus, where many source code reports are shown to be plagiarized from BSD.
And to add a bit to the discussion, most courses require several papers, and if the student is plagiarizing every paper plus each paper is on a different subject, then I believe the student will be plagiarizing from different authors for each paper. From this I conclude that this student's work will have a writing style that jumps all over the place, making it obvious that he/she is plagiarizing.
Also the professor can ask a questionable student about his or her paper, putting them on the spot.
Even better the school's staff will most likely have access to all of the student's previous papers, to compare to each other looking for evidence of plagiarism.
All of that said, there are cheats such as Cliff's notes, online sites that sell research paper's, and the smart kid in class who will help you with your assignment. All of these resources will cause the students writing style to change, and if the student really did not due his research, a few well-placed questions will reveal this fairly quickly.
The bastahds. I will block them just like I do the RIAA and its cronies.
My first exploration outside of Windows was with FreeBSD 4.5. I ran it in a virtual machine on my Windows box, played with it, read about it, and finally decided to switch over to it. I loaded it on all of my systems and made a go of using it. But there were too many problems with hardware incompatibilities, in fact, my RAID controller went nutz and actually damaged 2 out of the four hard drives. My printer was not supported, so on, and so forth.
After that I switched to Red Hat Linux, which still gave me a few learning curve problems, so I switched to Mandrake Linux and have been with it ever since. Just like in your case, I don't have system crashes on my servers, just on my workstation since that is the one I am always experimenting on ( different drivers, tweaks, etc ) but even then the crash is harmless, no data or hardware lost.
Sorry FreeBSD, you did your best, but sometimes your best just isn't good enough. I would say that if someone where migrating from Windows, they should move to Linux, not FreeBSD. If someone is already on FreeBSD, they should feel free to stay, as you probably have the kinks worked out for your particular environment.
I think you are over generalizing, and actually I have heard this exact argument before, except it was targeted at FreeBSd. I am an avid Linux user and have not met any fellow enthusiasts who match the traits you laid out.
d .php?s=&threadid=20679
But don't just listen to my take on the situation, read this thread for yourself and see how Linux users promote their favorite OS-> http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthrea
Interesting, because I don't see "*.htm" anywhere in the URL "http://www.google.com". The default page's extension for that site could be .asp, .shtml, or any number of things.
Edonkey has it. :) I actually use emule on Windows XP to access the Overture ( I think that is the name) network. Lots of legal stuff there. Plenty.
You got it. My sensei made a big deal about that when my swordfighting class went to see Godzilla 2000 or whatever the latest version was. Now, if they are trying to pronounce the English word "Mozilla", then the poster is correct. If they are saying it in Japanese, then you are ( most ) correct. Dang, I am so analytical today.
I was hopeful for Winamp 3, but my hopes were dashed against the rocks. That said, I have not tried 5 yet, but after reading this thread I am planning on it. Creative Labs media player ( I forget the name ) used to have the capability of playing audio and video files, and you could use playlists for both. I don't know why they took the video feature out of later versions, maybe it was too hard to support or something. Anyway, perhaps Winamp 5 will save the day. It would be nice to have Mplayer-type functionality on Windows one day, though I would accept it if started supporting only open standards, and slowly advanced ( via plugins, perhaps ) to be able to play quicktime, wm*, realmedia, etc.
There have been companies that have attempted this and failed. And even had they succeeded it would be harder to switch to a non-free solution than a combination of free players to get the job done.
Food for thought...
No flames. Do realize that as long as Linux is as modular and open as it is people will create their own distros, desktop managers, and so on. However, A computer reseller can standardize on a single distro desktop manager, a company can also. I assume when you limit your mention of desktop managers to only KDE/Gnome that you are aware that there are many more out there.
About Linux using Windows...well, he is a developer, and if you are writing code to run on a specific platform, you need access to that platform to as a minimum test it on that platform. I am learning Trolltech QT, and I use a USB drive to quickly move my source code between my Linux and Windows XP boxes in order to test it on that platform. The code itself is platform neutral, but it does look different on each OS and so I need to know if that will cause any problems.
Another reason you may need access to more than one OS is while you use one as your "main", the other is necessary because that one specific app you need only runs on the other OS. You may have plans on writing a replacement for it, but until then you have the other OS around as a temporary fix.
Now, how does all this tie in to Linux as a Desktop OS? From the standpoint of "switching" over from Windows to Linux it can be very confusing, true enough. Resellers can standardize and provide support which would make it easier for end users to find answers to their questions. Companies can do the same.
Perhaps a better answer is for a consortium of businesses to work together to build a "Corporate" linux distribution. Not only would this distro cater to corporate users, it would provide tools to make it easier for IT staff to manage/support that distro. Something similar to MS Active Directory/Novell LDAP would work.
Home users who purchase from resellers could get a pre-installed distro supported by the reseller ( say, Dell ) and that would make it easier to use. People who rolled their own systems could still be
overwhelmed by the sheer number of distros available to them, but then again usually these types of people rolled their own just for the privilege of having such a choice.
One last thing ( that was mention above ) is standards. Not that all applications have to look the same, but their data should ( data files include documents, databases ) be standardized enough to move between applications of similar functionality.
All said, I feel Linux is ready for the desktop technologically, its the installed client base that is lacking. If resellers and companies pick up on Linux distros, home usage and software development for Linux will skyrocket. There will be new problems to overcome as it becomes more popular, but these are normal "growing pains"
Hmm? What are all those letter shaped things on the screen? I click on the bright underlined thingies and the screen changes, cool. Look at all those flashing banner ads, pretty pictures, ...ohhhh...a flash movie.
Are you sure you need to be able to read to use the internet?
Well, it works well except it encrypts the files you transfer to your Windows computer from the Linux/Unix server, and to decrypt them you have to pay SCO for the decryption algorithm. Other than that is it free.
However, if you migrate your Unix/Linux boxes to MS Windows you can have the decryption algorithm for free. Who said MS wasn't fair?
Yes, I am kidding.
"The reproduction must be one-sided, and all materials, including graphic files that were used to make the reproduction, must be destroyed afterward."
Who else read this and thought it meant you have to destroy the $20 bill you were copying too? If someone scanned in the currency and sent you the image file to use in Photoshop, would you have to ensure they destroyed their $20 bill?
Ed: Thanks for the $20 bill image.
Bob: No problem.
Ed: Can I see the original?
Bob: Sure, here you go.
Ed:
Bob: What the hell are you doing?
Ed:
Bob: oh. Okay. You owe me $20 though.
I agree absolutely. This is a case where companies/organizations missed the boat and instead of paying the cost for being "a day late and a dollar short", they want the law to step in and just make everything better. Just using the term "cybersquatting" instead something like the Wall Street term "investing in futures" of a domain name shows how the media is manipulating public opinion by attaching a stigma to the act of purchasing a domain name in hopes that one day it will hold more value than when it was originally purchased.
Doesn't that sound a whole lot like purchasing stock, land, collectibles, or any other number of things in hopes it can be sold for a higher price later on? The difference I see is the domain names have to be re-registered periodically, oh, and the fact that they are not physical property. However, I personaly don't see cybersquatting being a problem, but rather it is the symptom of one. What problem? A common one for the Internet where the domain name registration system was not designed to account for the possibility of groups contending ( ok, fighting ) over domain names, or for names to be registered on a basis of greed and not a basis of need.
Solution? Put some rubber bands and chewing gum in place to keep the problem from becoming worse, and rework the domain name registration system so that if you purchase a domain name according to the provisions of the new system, you own it, free and clear, and do not have to worry about being sued or otherwise harassed soley over the name itself.
LOL, I know enough about scripting I can write books on it, mostly I use Perl and vbscript in the Windows environment. For Unix/Linux its just Perl as I really don't want to spend time doing shell programming.
On your second point, I can demand until I am blue in the face, if the President of the IT group wants 4-5 people at a single site to have writes to Active Directory, then that is the way it's going to be. If he says there will be no Linux/Unix boxes on the company network ( hint, he said it ), then you can lose your job if you put one up. If he says you will not create custom scripts to solve problems and/or automate processes, its your job if you are caught doing so ( he said that, too ), now do you get the picture?
I have recommended solutions to many things that suck up too much time needless, put together prototype to show that it worked ( I risked setting up a Linux box to show the benefits of Samba/Apache/etc. ), I showed how using a non-MS browser like Mozilla would not only give a free popup-blocker, but also stop the active-x spyware programs dead in their tracks. I created a database driven web site that handled inventory ( using Perl and MySql to get rid of the dumb Excel spreadsheets everyone in the company uses. Do think ANY of these ideas were adopted? The answer is no. And nor will they. I don't know what logic drives the decisions in the company, but it isn't one that strives for efficiency. As a result, my solution are delegated for my own use only. I answer inventory queueries faster than anyone thanks to my inventory web site, I change passwords, unlock account, create and configure accounts all from the command line thanks to the Perl scripts I wrote that access MS Active Directory, and so on and so forth. I feel bad that while I can do something in 2 seconds while other admins waste time opening up a GUI application, navigating to the item they want to manager, and then click around clumsy interfaces, I realize that this is not my company, and if they choose to be stupid, that is their choice. They were given the reigns of the IT group, and both the decision and the consequences thereof are theirs to carry.
Oh, and I am working on Trolltech QT C++ apps now to make a nice GUI interface for my Perl scripts, because the few admins I can allow to use my tools are not command line savy, since I want them to use them ( scripts make sure the job gets done everytime, with no steps left out ). Eventually I may replace the Perl oart with pure C++ code to make it more uniform.
Peace.