"It pains me to admit it somewhat as a Windows user, but in general, Mac users know more about their computers than the average Windows junkie."
This isnt true. I work Helldesk. With their new push on ipods the mac is selling well to the general populace. I get a ton of windows like calls from mac users now. The questions are just as dumb/simple/inane and almost at the same rate and frequency as the windows users now.
Sorry but your statement may have been true years ago but not today.
I think your a bit harsh on him. While it's true that a good DM can make a non-miniture RPG game a blast, using visual aids is also fun. It's another style of playing.
To me, its like playing a MUD to a current MMORPG. Both are fun when done correctly. A good mud doesnt need gfx if the text is rich enough but you can still get sucked into a good MMORPG just as eaisly.
Really, I think you are talking more preference than anything and came across very harsh for nothing more than opinion.
Why? Pressure from the US. Same reason why non-US isps will take measures against their customers who break US copyright laws. Case in point, a frind of mines who lives in Switzerland got an MPAA form letter for shareing a movie. Now, while the MPAA has no hold there his isp asked him to remove it becuase they were being pressured by the uplinks to the US. It's like this "Oh you DON'T want to stop them? Fine, we are terminating your peering."
Slimy, yup, but thats what kind of pressure the **AA is putting on many companies to have other countries comply with their laws.
That is why Australia and many other countries are taking these measures.
BTW, this isnt a US thing either (i live in the us so it's not anti-american bashing) it's a GREED thing. Laws are being bought in the US left and right to protect these monopolies and megacorps and from recent news it looks like they are buying EU countries with their money and strong arm tactics too.
You're just a troll but I'll reply anyway. Of course there are no stats or solid proof if this. Why? Do you see an open bug tracking system for IE? Nope. We can only guess that the holes that IE has outside of the ones that are posted publicly and those have been fixed (sometimes).
FUD? No, but a pretty damn good guess going off past history of IE.
What I see now, not when I was a kid, is that they dont teach the subjects anymore. No, now they teach for a test, the MCAS or what ever the state mandated test is for your state. How is that learning? All you know after HS now is how to take one specific test.
My brother scored in the top 1% of the state on this test and got a free ride to ANY MA school. That's great except even he feels that he learned nothing while in school. In history they didn't teach him about WWII or Ancient Greese, he learned what the test would most likely ask and how to answer it properly. In english he didn't learn sentence structure he learned how the test is layed out and how to take it with the time that was permited.
That is a tragedy. My brother is damn smart, he was getting B's in subjects before anyone knew he was dislexic (sp?) and A's after. Now, instead of continuing to learn new things they cram this test on them in EVERY class, even the AP classes.
This is the future of the US school system, learn to take a test so the school doenst get fined/lose money for have a low passing turn out of the state test.
The worse part about this test? It makes the SAT's seem tame because you are allowed X amout of times to take it and if you fail then you are NOT ALLOWED to graduate, period. Here in MA you would have to get a GED after this. So, if you are not good at taking tests or are just too nervous taking it and blow it, bye bye graduation.
I can understand wanting to evaulate schools to see if they are up to a national standard but holding the school hostage to them by holding funding over their heads and pinning it on the kids if they fail (may NOT be their problem if the school just plain sucks, they cannot take a test, or are so pressured they blow it) is just out right wrong to the core. It just takes what ever basic knowledge HS used to teach and throws it out the window.
Wish I had a mod point for you. You hit the nail on the head reguarding "exciting". For me, an "exciting" week is have a bunch of DS3's and T1's on the fritz, all the customers calling every 5 mins wanting to know whats going on, Verizon telling me they see nothing wrong (as usual), and my boss telling me itshould have been fixed yesteray.
The weeks that are not exciting are the most enjoyalbe for me. I'll take a week of web browsing and basic server maintenence to the above excitement anyday.
Simple, because people are already goaded into thinking that they DO in fact need big names and over priced "stars" for a show to be good. People with real talent who are no names are getting screwed and not even given a real chance most of the time and end up having to shill themselves out to reality shows to get any kind of a break.
Whats really sad though is people with any talent are not signing up for these craptastic things.
I'd have to say its probably not what they are doing, but what MS isn't doing and that is patching their holes. Really, I got my wife to switch to Firefox after yet ANOTHER install of xp because of malware/spyware infections. There is another user due to the holes in IE.
Don't get me wrong here, I LIKE Firefox but getting people to switch like my parents or wife takes an act of God. In this case, an act of reinstalling.
What? You do know the MM in MMORPG is Massivly Multiplayer right? You don't want to be disturbed by others? Why are you even playing an MMO in the first place? You should be playing single player games period. Games like this are not for you and your comments on this subject are moot at the least.
These games are created for people who WANT to play with 10,000 others on a server. They want to be in a guild and want to group while doing things within the game. While some soloability is usually put into the game, its not its main focus. The "end games" are usually coded for a massive ammout of people to do and impossible for even a small group to get to.
Flexible Approach
DRM is a key feature of copy protection and our philosophy is to provide a flexible range of solutions for the Record Labels. While XCP itself is a single session technology it has been developed to incorporate third party Second Session DRM as well as our own proprietary DRM which uniquely enables protected burning of copy protected CDs.
Sounds pretty good if you read it straight right? Now if you look DIRECTLY under it it has this (bold mines):
Second Session DRM
XCP copy protection has been developed to be compatible with third party Second Session DRM technologies enabling a feature rich experience for consumers. Multi session music CDs contain both the original Red Book audio files and also data files with video clips and photo libraries as well as Digital Rights Management features that provide greater controls for the Record Labels over the onward distribution of content by the consumer.
Hmm doesnt sound very flexable to me. Sounds like they are DRMing the music and the ability to copy but alot giving total control of said ability to the RIAA.
Just another overly abusive DRM it sounds like to me. Somewhere in some law buried is the right of usage for our media. The right to actually make backup copies and complations for our selves. Here, that ability is not only taken away but hands the RIAA exactely what it wants, total control of the media we have purchased.
Whats scary is you are correct. Kids software itself is PACKED with spyware. This is software you buy mind you. Once they start downloading stuff from kids sites (read: nick.com, nickjr.com, disney.com, etc...) those free downloads are riddled with it.
It's really sad to see these companies taking advantage of kids now because some adult users are getting a clue.
Blizzard is using a Bittorrent client for its patching even now that it is live. Alot of trailers are now being pushed out, legally, via bittorrent. Linux disto's use bittorrent. There are so many legal uses of this that it's very easy to put them up againt the illegal use. Lets hope that stands up when the lawyer houses start the train's in the higher courts.
The only problem with the Barracuda is it doesnt learn for crap. Spam still eeks in if its filled with the spam it contains then a bunch of junk. Usually the subject will be the usual Re: You called? then the body of spam then under that a bunch of full sentance that make NO sense but fools the filter. Ive seen sentances like "My life is all about pizza and staples. The air here is filled with screw drivers." A good 20 of them then a few quotes from a book or soemthing.
What happends there is the irrevelant but non-spam like quotes and sentances out weigh the points that the Barracuda adds up for the spam and it gets though.
Re:A few thoughts and some questions....
on
Upbeat on E-books
·
· Score: 1
Im sorry but the entire last paragraph makes no sense. Not only is the analogy way off but how about this... There is now 7 forms of tcp/ip and none work with the other or work well enough with the other to be realiable. Sound good to you? Oh, but only have ONE is like only have one language. See the idiocy in this? Also, why would there only be ONE ebook reader if there was one standard? Is there one eth card because there is one tcp/ip standard?
I wish i had a mod point for you. You point out what screamed at me when I first read this. I guess it's just one of those "Well, I just wanted to see if I could do it." projects. Emulating would have been alot simpler but no where near as cool.
Straight up comedy games ala the original Lucasarts ones wont work now. A lot of those were filled with injokes and specifically geeky jokes. Now that the demographic has changed to the non-geek and general populace they don't work. Not only do they not work, but to create a game that would the humor would have to be so broad as to be either unfunny or work once.
I have seen some humor left but it is either background, in jokes, or specific. Case in point, alot of the quest givers in WoW have some funny stuff to say and the voice emotes are a riot but the game itself is pretty serious.
One thing that people fail to mention is the switch in humor in the games has worked. People are buying these games or subscribing to the serives in record numbers even in this declining economy. Weither or not any of us agree with humor in games in its current incarnation it moot really. Pander to the lowest common denominator and make lots of money. Sad but true.
How much privacy before or after usage of a system in a public place do these people think they actually get? They are public, not your home system.
Also, who would be sending private emails or requestion passwords via a public terminal and not know that this info could be seen after weither the Google utility is installed or not.
"Look at the automobile - tons of competing car companies making different cars, but they all have some standardized equipment customized in a little different way not to radically change the entire experience. Open standards would kill Microsoft (or at least knock them off their behemoth perch), and they know it."
Worse example ever for this. You are proving MS's case with this. Automobiles are like MS actually. Each part is close to the same as others but not close enough. You think I can take a starter out of say a Yugo and put it into a F-150? Not likely. They my kinda work the same but are whole different.
For people like us (slashdotters) these books are mostly tales and overly obvious statements. Interesting and sometimes fun to read. That's about it.
To people NOT like us (read: small/mid company admins and even some larger company admins) alot of this is actually an eye opener. Case in point: Some of you may know that I work for a smaller, privatly owned ISP. Because of this, we cater to a bunch of mid/small businesses. I have suggested his first book for them to read. I have gotten no less than 20 call backs after they read the book with statements like "Wow, I never even thought of that!" and "Thanks for the book tip! Helped me out alot and we have tightned up security with our staff." You're lucky to find a semi-competent admin in companies this small (or an admin at all) let alone one who understand or has even heard of social engineering or any type of specific attack out side of what the main stream media reports.
Keep in mind that alot of admin in these companies have heard DoS and DDoS before, maybe even the names of a few well know worms but they don't even know what they stand for or what they do. They are nothing more than the catch phrase of the week. Books like this are pretty invaluable to them as they are not written from a tech stand point (Hardening Cisco comes to mind) and are eaisly understood and easy to put into practice by someone who is the admin because they know what HDD stands for or were hired on the lowest possible salary.
Don't get me wrong here, these are not the end all be all security books but they are a great boon to the customers that I service.
I work for an ISP. I see alot (well hear) of companies still running on Win95 and 98. When I ask why the answers I usually get are "Why? This is working for us just fine!" and "We would love too but shelling out thousands for new hardware, the OS, upgrading the current programs, and training just isn't worth it."
I think alot of people on/. seem to forget that a good 90% of users only know how to run certain programs in windows and thats it. Once they deviate from that, forget it, they are totally lost. The cost in training someone to use a newer OS and the programs associated it can sometimes run into the hundreds of thousands depending on the size of a company.
One other thing to keep in mind is that most mid to smaller level companies do not have onsite IT people. They will either higher outside integrators who charge by the hour or just wing it and hope that the existing set up continues to work for as long as possible. In both situations the company is very very hesident to upgrade as it will cost a ton of money to effectivly get the same results as now.
I'd have to say this is pretty rare. That's just bad policy. At the ISP where I work it takes multiple offensives and the offending ISP has to either not respond to our multiple complaints for over 30 days or flat out refuse to do so. At such time we will blackhole them.
Personally I see this more as an overzelous or undertrained staff at one ISP. I haven't heard too much of this happening myself. I think the biggest issue with blacklisting is when you end up blocking say a/16 or something because someone in a/30 is spamming. That seems to be more of an issue these days than what the author of the story is writting about.
Who cares about money this early in the game? What we should be caring about is presidence. If this runs though the court system, we can get a presidence that can later be used against other spammers. Thats the name of the game these days. Look at the DMCA. The only presidence it has now is that people settle before it gets challanged.
Only draw back that I see comming from this an any other spam law is the eventual case of the gov/state/megacorp vs non-spammers. How soon will we be reading a story here about one of those entities suing John Doe user for sending an unsolistied e-mail because he had a gripe? Lets just hope that when presidence does come its specific and not as far reaching and badly worded like the current digital laws.
Slashdot Mirror
"It pains me to admit it somewhat as a Windows user, but in general, Mac users know more about their computers than the average Windows junkie."
This isnt true. I work Helldesk. With their new push on ipods the mac is selling well to the general populace. I get a ton of windows like calls from mac users now. The questions are just as dumb/simple/inane and almost at the same rate and frequency as the windows users now.
Sorry but your statement may have been true years ago but not today.
I think your a bit harsh on him. While it's true that a good DM can make a non-miniture RPG game a blast, using visual aids is also fun. It's another style of playing.
To me, its like playing a MUD to a current MMORPG. Both are fun when done correctly. A good mud doesnt need gfx if the text is rich enough but you can still get sucked into a good MMORPG just as eaisly.
Really, I think you are talking more preference than anything and came across very harsh for nothing more than opinion.
Why? Pressure from the US. Same reason why non-US isps will take measures against their customers who break US copyright laws. Case in point, a frind of mines who lives in Switzerland got an MPAA form letter for shareing a movie. Now, while the MPAA has no hold there his isp asked him to remove it becuase they were being pressured by the uplinks to the US. It's like this "Oh you DON'T want to stop them? Fine, we are terminating your peering."
Slimy, yup, but thats what kind of pressure the **AA is putting on many companies to have other countries comply with their laws.
That is why Australia and many other countries are taking these measures.
BTW, this isnt a US thing either (i live in the us so it's not anti-american bashing) it's a GREED thing. Laws are being bought in the US left and right to protect these monopolies and megacorps and from recent news it looks like they are buying EU countries with their money and strong arm tactics too.
You're just a troll but I'll reply anyway. Of course there are no stats or solid proof if this. Why? Do you see an open bug tracking system for IE? Nope. We can only guess that the holes that IE has outside of the ones that are posted publicly and those have been fixed (sometimes).
FUD? No, but a pretty damn good guess going off past history of IE.
What I see now, not when I was a kid, is that they dont teach the subjects anymore. No, now they teach for a test, the MCAS or what ever the state mandated test is for your state. How is that learning? All you know after HS now is how to take one specific test.
My brother scored in the top 1% of the state on this test and got a free ride to ANY MA school. That's great except even he feels that he learned nothing while in school. In history they didn't teach him about WWII or Ancient Greese, he learned what the test would most likely ask and how to answer it properly. In english he didn't learn sentence structure he learned how the test is layed out and how to take it with the time that was permited.
That is a tragedy. My brother is damn smart, he was getting B's in subjects before anyone knew he was dislexic (sp?) and A's after. Now, instead of continuing to learn new things they cram this test on them in EVERY class, even the AP classes.
This is the future of the US school system, learn to take a test so the school doenst get fined/lose money for have a low passing turn out of the state test.
The worse part about this test? It makes the SAT's seem tame because you are allowed X amout of times to take it and if you fail then you are NOT ALLOWED to graduate, period. Here in MA you would have to get a GED after this. So, if you are not good at taking tests or are just too nervous taking it and blow it, bye bye graduation.
I can understand wanting to evaulate schools to see if they are up to a national standard but holding the school hostage to them by holding funding over their heads and pinning it on the kids if they fail (may NOT be their problem if the school just plain sucks, they cannot take a test, or are so pressured they blow it) is just out right wrong to the core. It just takes what ever basic knowledge HS used to teach and throws it out the window.
Wish I had a mod point for you. You hit the nail on the head reguarding "exciting". For me, an "exciting" week is have a bunch of DS3's and T1's on the fritz, all the customers calling every 5 mins wanting to know whats going on, Verizon telling me they see nothing wrong (as usual), and my boss telling me itshould have been fixed yesteray.
The weeks that are not exciting are the most enjoyalbe for me. I'll take a week of web browsing and basic server maintenence to the above excitement anyday.
Simple, because people are already goaded into thinking that they DO in fact need big names and over priced "stars" for a show to be good. People with real talent who are no names are getting screwed and not even given a real chance most of the time and end up having to shill themselves out to reality shows to get any kind of a break.
Whats really sad though is people with any talent are not signing up for these craptastic things.
You are correct, its "Send Unsent Message". It's under File if your in the outbox and on the right click menu of the outbox.
I'd have to say its probably not what they are doing, but what MS isn't doing and that is patching their holes. Really, I got my wife to switch to Firefox after yet ANOTHER install of xp because of malware/spyware infections. There is another user due to the holes in IE.
Don't get me wrong here, I LIKE Firefox but getting people to switch like my parents or wife takes an act of God. In this case, an act of reinstalling.
What? You do know the MM in MMORPG is Massivly Multiplayer right? You don't want to be disturbed by others? Why are you even playing an MMO in the first place? You should be playing single player games period. Games like this are not for you and your comments on this subject are moot at the least.
These games are created for people who WANT to play with 10,000 others on a server. They want to be in a guild and want to group while doing things within the game. While some soloability is usually put into the game, its not its main focus. The "end games" are usually coded for a massive ammout of people to do and impossible for even a small group to get to.
Clicked on DRM on the site and this came up:
Flexible Approach
DRM is a key feature of copy protection and our philosophy is to provide a flexible range of solutions for the Record Labels. While XCP itself is a single session technology it has been developed to incorporate third party Second Session DRM as well as our own proprietary DRM which uniquely enables protected burning of copy protected CDs.
Sounds pretty good if you read it straight right? Now if you look DIRECTLY under it it has this (bold mines):
Second Session DRM
XCP copy protection has been developed to be compatible with third party Second Session DRM technologies enabling a feature rich experience for consumers. Multi session music CDs contain both the original Red Book audio files and also data files with video clips and photo libraries as well as Digital Rights Management features that provide greater controls for the Record Labels over the onward distribution of content by the consumer.
Hmm doesnt sound very flexable to me. Sounds like they are DRMing the music and the ability to copy but alot giving total control of said ability to the RIAA.
Just another overly abusive DRM it sounds like to me. Somewhere in some law buried is the right of usage for our media. The right to actually make backup copies and complations for our selves. Here, that ability is not only taken away but hands the RIAA exactely what it wants, total control of the media we have purchased.
Whats scary is you are correct. Kids software itself is PACKED with spyware. This is software you buy mind you. Once they start downloading stuff from kids sites (read: nick.com, nickjr.com, disney.com, etc...) those free downloads are riddled with it.
It's really sad to see these companies taking advantage of kids now because some adult users are getting a clue.
Blizzard is using a Bittorrent client for its patching even now that it is live. Alot of trailers are now being pushed out, legally, via bittorrent. Linux disto's use bittorrent. There are so many legal uses of this that it's very easy to put them up againt the illegal use. Lets hope that stands up when the lawyer houses start the train's in the higher courts.
The only problem with the Barracuda is it doesnt learn for crap. Spam still eeks in if its filled with the spam it contains then a bunch of junk. Usually the subject will be the usual Re: You called? then the body of spam then under that a bunch of full sentance that make NO sense but fools the filter. Ive seen sentances like "My life is all about pizza and staples. The air here is filled with screw drivers." A good 20 of them then a few quotes from a book or soemthing.
What happends there is the irrevelant but non-spam like quotes and sentances out weigh the points that the Barracuda adds up for the spam and it gets though.
Im sorry but the entire last paragraph makes no sense. Not only is the analogy way off but how about this... There is now 7 forms of tcp/ip and none work with the other or work well enough with the other to be realiable. Sound good to you? Oh, but only have ONE is like only have one language. See the idiocy in this? Also, why would there only be ONE ebook reader if there was one standard? Is there one eth card because there is one tcp/ip standard?
I wish i had a mod point for you. You point out what screamed at me when I first read this. I guess it's just one of those "Well, I just wanted to see if I could do it." projects. Emulating would have been alot simpler but no where near as cool.
Straight up comedy games ala the original Lucasarts ones wont work now. A lot of those were filled with injokes and specifically geeky jokes. Now that the demographic has changed to the non-geek and general populace they don't work. Not only do they not work, but to create a game that would the humor would have to be so broad as to be either unfunny or work once.
I have seen some humor left but it is either background, in jokes, or specific. Case in point, alot of the quest givers in WoW have some funny stuff to say and the voice emotes are a riot but the game itself is pretty serious.
One thing that people fail to mention is the switch in humor in the games has worked. People are buying these games or subscribing to the serives in record numbers even in this declining economy. Weither or not any of us agree with humor in games in its current incarnation it moot really. Pander to the lowest common denominator and make lots of money. Sad but true.
How much privacy before or after usage of a system in a public place do these people think they actually get? They are public, not your home system.
Also, who would be sending private emails or requestion passwords via a public terminal and not know that this info could be seen after weither the Google utility is installed or not.
I'm called Overhype on this.
"Look at the automobile - tons of competing car companies making different cars, but they all have some standardized equipment customized in a little different way not to radically change the entire experience. Open standards would kill Microsoft (or at least knock them off their behemoth perch), and they know it."
Worse example ever for this. You are proving MS's case with this. Automobiles are like MS actually. Each part is close to the same as others but not close enough. You think I can take a starter out of say a Yugo and put it into a F-150? Not likely. They my kinda work the same but are whole different.
For people like us (slashdotters) these books are mostly tales and overly obvious statements. Interesting and sometimes fun to read. That's about it.
To people NOT like us (read: small/mid company admins and even some larger company admins) alot of this is actually an eye opener. Case in point: Some of you may know that I work for a smaller, privatly owned ISP. Because of this, we cater to a bunch of mid/small businesses. I have suggested his first book for them to read. I have gotten no less than 20 call backs after they read the book with statements like "Wow, I never even thought of that!" and "Thanks for the book tip! Helped me out alot and we have tightned up security with our staff." You're lucky to find a semi-competent admin in companies this small (or an admin at all) let alone one who understand or has even heard of social engineering or any type of specific attack out side of what the main stream media reports.
Keep in mind that alot of admin in these companies have heard DoS and DDoS before, maybe even the names of a few well know worms but they don't even know what they stand for or what they do. They are nothing more than the catch phrase of the week. Books like this are pretty invaluable to them as they are not written from a tech stand point (Hardening Cisco comes to mind) and are eaisly understood and easy to put into practice by someone who is the admin because they know what HDD stands for or were hired on the lowest possible salary.
Don't get me wrong here, these are not the end all be all security books but they are a great boon to the customers that I service.
I work for an ISP. I see alot (well hear) of companies still running on Win95 and 98. When I ask why the answers I usually get are "Why? This is working for us just fine!" and "We would love too but shelling out thousands for new hardware, the OS, upgrading the current programs, and training just isn't worth it."
/. seem to forget that a good 90% of users only know how to run certain programs in windows and thats it. Once they deviate from that, forget it, they are totally lost. The cost in training someone to use a newer OS and the programs associated it can sometimes run into the hundreds of thousands depending on the size of a company.
I think alot of people on
One other thing to keep in mind is that most mid to smaller level companies do not have onsite IT people. They will either higher outside integrators who charge by the hour or just wing it and hope that the existing set up continues to work for as long as possible. In both situations the company is very very hesident to upgrade as it will cost a ton of money to effectivly get the same results as now.
I'd have to say this is pretty rare. That's just bad policy. At the ISP where I work it takes multiple offensives and the offending ISP has to either not respond to our multiple complaints for over 30 days or flat out refuse to do so. At such time we will blackhole them.
/16 or something because someone in a /30 is spamming. That seems to be more of an issue these days than what the author of the story is writting about.
Personally I see this more as an overzelous or undertrained staff at one ISP. I haven't heard too much of this happening myself. I think the biggest issue with blacklisting is when you end up blocking say a
Nope, Indy just blasts away at that guy after he gives his "impressive" sword display. That was, thankfully, not tampered with.
Bah its early for me and my first coffee hasnt sunk into my skull yet.
Who cares about money this early in the game? What we should be caring about is presidence. If this runs though the court system, we can get a presidence that can later be used against other spammers. Thats the name of the game these days. Look at the DMCA. The only presidence it has now is that people settle before it gets challanged.
Only draw back that I see comming from this an any other spam law is the eventual case of the gov/state/megacorp vs non-spammers. How soon will we be reading a story here about one of those entities suing John Doe user for sending an unsolistied e-mail because he had a gripe? Lets just hope that when presidence does come its specific and not as far reaching and badly worded like the current digital laws.