I specifically wrote " generally (yes, there are exceptions)" to avoid this sort of response, by pre-acknowledging what you later wrote. I'm well aware of the wind tunnel Macs, but they are the exceptions. The iMac -- very quiet. Powerbooks -- silent. iBooks -- silent. Mac mini? I've heard silent too, and in fact that was the whole point of this thread. I was responding to an aspect of the mini in question from the article.
"What exactly do you do with a Mac mini that you can't get any visual output from"
Bah! Real programmers don't need screens. Why, in my day we didn't even need keyboards to issue our commands. We merely bellowed at the computer and it whimpered off to do what we wanted. Honestly, the kids these days...
"Although it runs fine without wires, he had to plug in the monitor to be able to show that it was really up."
Helps that Macs generally (yes, there are exceptions) run whisper quiet. Is the computer on? With a PC, just listen for the fan noise. With a Mac, hmm..can't tell, better look at the screen.
I am stunned that you were modded down as a Troll for stating what are known facts. But then maybe I shouldn't be surprised as anyone who listened to only the mainstream media would think you were making stuff up. That's really sad that those who read deeper, who find out what is behind the headlines, are marked as Troll, while those who repeat what they were told are considered accurate.
For what it's worth, I wondered if anyone else knew that Newsweek was reporting the truth in the first place, and I am glad to see that I am not alone. I appreciated your post even if the clueless mods did not.
The OS code is inherently more secure, for it's based on BSD. No comparison to the way Windows is architected. With Windows, they bolt security on after the fact. With Unix/Linux/BSD/Mach it's built-in from the beginning.
So while I did say that Linux or Macs wouldn't solve all the problems, it would help a lot. No the problems wouldn't just go away if everyone used Macs, but it would drop way down. Spyware wouldn't be as effective if it had to ask permission before installing itself in your computer. With Windows, it just does it in the background without the clueless user's knowledge. With Linux or a Mac, it would try that, and then be stopped by the kernel's security layer and be forced to ask the user to explicitly allow itself to be installed. With a password prompt. Even a clueless user will think twice about why browsing a web site would require software to be installed that he or she didn't ask for.
So while some stupid joe users would mindlessly click Yes to everything, some would not, and that right there would immediately cut down the spread of spyware.
"Joe has a ten year investment in hardware, software, and peripherals to protect."
Over the years, Joe replaces all his hardware and software. The next time he replaces it, he can get a Linux machine or a Mac. My sister-in-law did so, and had no problems. Used to use Word, and now still does. Wanted IE, still uses IE (though I encourage her to move to Safari more and more). For a casual user, it's easy to switch. I do agree that someone who is dependent on Windows-only software is stuck, but I wasn't talking about heavy users, just very casual ones.
"Joe's cable ISP includes spam filtering and an Internet security bundle as part of his basic or premium service package. Joe is not in the market for the Mac or Linux."
He should be, for what his cable ISP provides does not solve all the problems. But hey, it's Joe's choice (assuming he even realizes he has a choice, which was my original point). For my sister-in-law, Josephine Average, it was like night and day for her. She loves her new computer and OS. She had no idea things could just work.
Whatsa matter, sport? Courts got you down? They say you have no legal leg to stand on? Don't listen to them! Get your own laws! You write 'em. You pay for 'em. You benefit from 'em.
" Lose everyone to Linux, Mac, due to mob protection type business practices at Microsoft."
Ah, good, someone else thought of the mob protection analogy. "Nice computer you have here. Shame if any viruses were to harm it."
What I wonder is why more people (you know, average computer users, not/. posters) don't think about alternative platforms such as Linux or Mac. But last night I was watching the local news and they had one of their typically sweeps-inspired scare stories about how letting your kids use their computer to go to gaming sites will lead to spyware, and adware, and who knows what else! Aaaaaah!
OK, ignoring the stupidity of tying gaming to evil, I found the reporter's conclusion interesting. Noting the steps that could be done to protect yourself, he said keep your OS up-to-date, run anti-virus software, run a firewall, and monitor what your kids do with their computer. I kept waiting for the obvious other solution: Get rid of Windows and move to a Mac. End of problem. I could just imagine the reaction of Joe Average watching this report if the reporter had said, "Or you could just switch to a Mac and have virtually none of these problems." Joe Average would have sat up and said, "What? Really? I had no idea!"
And that's the point, most people have no idea there are alternatives out there that minimize the problem. Not that Linux or OS X-based systems are totally invulnerable, but it's a lot harder for a virus even directed at such OSes to get traction when the first thing they have to do is explicitly ask the user for permission to run and ask for a password!
Watching that news report, I realized this is what my sister-in-law would be going through if she were using a Windows box. She is clueless about computers, checks her email faithfully every month or two whether she needs to or not (sarcasm), and is always connected through broadband. That's a recipe for disaster...except I recommended she get an iMac. Instead of having to clear out adware and spyware every time I visit, she just uses her computer as she wants without any problem in the 2+ years she has had the box. No way a clueless Windows user on broadband would be so lucky, but a clueless Mac user? No phone calls to me with tech support issues in 2+ years. If only more average users knew this kind of computing experience was possible.
"His promise: Longhorn, the next version of the Windows operating system, will make malicious software (malware) that gets onto computers without the users' knowledge 'a thing of the past'."
Uh, yeah Bill, we've heard this promise before. I'm not holding my breath over any Microsoft promise that ends with "a thing of the past." The past keeps coming back to haunt you with Windows.
However, let's assume this time Microsoft really, really gets it right. If so, it won't be only malware that has a hard time on your computer. With their Palladium-- er sorry, Next Generatio-- er whatever they call it this week, your own software won't trust you. Can I play this music? Dunno, let's ask Microsoft. Can I see this movie? Dunno, let's ask Microsoft. Or more accurately, let's ask the systems Microsoft has put in place to handle permissioning. Yeah, they can isolate malware, but the means by which they will do this will also isolate your own stuff every time it thinks you do not have permission to run/view it.
Thank you! Sadly, it will never work. If I were editor,/. would have fewer self-promotion stories, and lots more pointless but quirkily humorous stories that have nothing to do with technology, is not news for nerds, and hardly contains stuff that matters.
I never said anything about right-wing, that was the other guy. And I agree with you about CNN and Time-Warner pushing their own movies. All I was doing was pointing out that this was a non-story story designed to push ticket sales. It just happened to be Murdoch doing it this time.
Re:I'm going, but so is my staff
on
Star Wars Sickout
·
· Score: 1, Funny
"Oh well, c'est la vie"
Ah! You're French. That explains the lack of productivity and willingness to take unnecessary days off.
Wait, let me get this straight: The New York Post is hyping how popular they think the Fox Movie studio distributing the movie Revenge of the Sith will be. OK, let's see...New York Post (owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp). Check. Fox (owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp). Check. Cross-promotion? Check. Getting Slashdot to hype this to the fanboys? Check.
Other than yet another Roland ad, what is the point of this story being on/.? We're geeks -- we want to see the pictures! What, no maps to show yet? Write us when you have the pics to show.
Seriously, are we going to help create the maps? No. Are we going to be able to provide assistance in any way? No. Is there anything to see yet? No. So why not post a story once the maps are out?
"How the hell is the single-word comment "cool" insightful?"
Why not? Sometimes the right word is just what you need to jog your thinking process in a new (insightful) way. Sometimes just writing a single number can give you insight into life, the universe, and everything:
When he showed a screenshot of the new Mail app as an example of awful UI design, my instant reaction to the screenshot was "Wow! That looks beautiful!" I can certainly agree with what Siracusa says about human interface design issues, and what he says makes sense, and on an intellectual level what he says about Mail is logical, but man, if I don't just love the new look on an emotional level! I guess I'll be in the tiny minority on this one.
Several people responded to my post by saying something similar, that the police and the courts are on opposite sides. I understand what you are saying, and in court cases I see the conflict quite clearly. But we are talking about getting approval for wiretapping. That's not a criminal case in criminal court. This is a couple of cops going privately to a judge and saying, "Your Honor, here is the evidence we have to justify the wiretap. Can we proceed?" In that case, the judge and the cops are on the same side: Fighting crime. That's what I meant.
But you are right, what they should be doing is looking after the interests of the general public and checking carefully before rubberstamping permission. All I was doing was speculating on the possible psychology for why there does seem to be a lot of rubberstamping going on.
"Apparently judges have found that law enforcement is unbelievably perfect as they rubber-stamped approvals on every single request they received"
This makes a certain sense. Law enforcement, both police and judges, must feel they are on the same side and under siege by the forces of crime. After all, that's all they see and work with every day. So just as units of soldiers bond and stand up for each other, I imagine it must be tempting for judges and police to bond, or at least feel they are both working the same job from different angles. So they are probably predisposed to think the police know what they are doing when they ask for a wire-tap. Most of the time, they are probably right.
But yeah, it sure does allow the slip-ups (and the occasional outright corruption) to get through mostly unchallenged. That's the downside, and a good reminder why a citizen should never give their governing structure any kind of power without realizing they will use that power early and often and repeatedly, and when someone becomes corrupt it will get used in a corrupted manner. And with very little in the way of real checks and balances in a practical sense.
I think you are that far off, personally. It's not as if any one of us didn't know this stuff was coming in one form or another. OK, so you find out you get from point A to point B with the line "XYZ" instead of "ABC," but it's not as if any of what he said is earthshakingly new. Of course the link-ups to Star Wars would be there. Of course these plot developments would happen. What did you think this movie would have in it?
"Perhaps the MSN spider is taking advantage of some specific IIS features to provide enhanced indexing?"
In other words, there are some explanations out there other than "MS is biased and there's a conspiracy and they are trying to take over the world"..."
It's called plausible deniability. "Why, no, we had no idea this would happen. You say it's an interaction with an IIS feature that causes this to happen? Heavens to Betsy, we never thought of that."
Microsoft people aren't stupid, and they ARE trying to take over the computer world, or haven't you been paying attention to what they say and what they have done? The engineers that built MSN Search would certainly be aware of any interaction that fits with IIS features to provide enchanced indexing. They would have been all over it from the beginning. And a side-effect means that IIS sites come out higher? Great! It's a feature that benefits us, they would think.
Of course MS is biased. Of course they would have noticed this. Of course they like it.
OK, fair enough, but you may be missing my point too. I realize that most people don't want to get under the hood, but it's good to know that it's allowed for those who want it. There are movements afoot to prevent independent mechanics from working on your car, forcing you to go to the official dealership if you want your car fixed. Similarly, there are indications of a fight against free software. In both cases, that's the freedom I'm talking about, the freedom to have the choice to work on the car/look at the source. Even if you choose not to use that freedom, it's good to know it's there.
"How does making a choice cause freedom to get lost. Isn't that the definition of freedom?"
"Yawn...I guess I could go vote and get rid of that tyrant who threatens to eliminate free speech...yawn...but I think I'll exercise my freedom and watch this new reality TV show instead."
Slashdot Mirror
I specifically wrote " generally (yes, there are exceptions)" to avoid this sort of response, by pre-acknowledging what you later wrote. I'm well aware of the wind tunnel Macs, but they are the exceptions. The iMac -- very quiet. Powerbooks -- silent. iBooks -- silent. Mac mini? I've heard silent too, and in fact that was the whole point of this thread. I was responding to an aspect of the mini in question from the article.
Bah! Real programmers don't need screens. Why, in my day we didn't even need keyboards to issue our commands. We merely bellowed at the computer and it whimpered off to do what we wanted. Honestly, the kids these days...
Helps that Macs generally (yes, there are exceptions) run whisper quiet. Is the computer on? With a PC, just listen for the fan noise. With a Mac, hmm..can't tell, better look at the screen.
For what it's worth, I wondered if anyone else knew that Newsweek was reporting the truth in the first place, and I am glad to see that I am not alone. I appreciated your post even if the clueless mods did not.
The centers of the brain that are stimulated by chocolate and shopping. Of course. Why, what were you thinking?
So while I did say that Linux or Macs wouldn't solve all the problems, it would help a lot. No the problems wouldn't just go away if everyone used Macs, but it would drop way down. Spyware wouldn't be as effective if it had to ask permission before installing itself in your computer. With Windows, it just does it in the background without the clueless user's knowledge. With Linux or a Mac, it would try that, and then be stopped by the kernel's security layer and be forced to ask the user to explicitly allow itself to be installed. With a password prompt. Even a clueless user will think twice about why browsing a web site would require software to be installed that he or she didn't ask for.
So while some stupid joe users would mindlessly click Yes to everything, some would not, and that right there would immediately cut down the spread of spyware.
Over the years, Joe replaces all his hardware and software. The next time he replaces it, he can get a Linux machine or a Mac. My sister-in-law did so, and had no problems. Used to use Word, and now still does. Wanted IE, still uses IE (though I encourage her to move to Safari more and more). For a casual user, it's easy to switch. I do agree that someone who is dependent on Windows-only software is stuck, but I wasn't talking about heavy users, just very casual ones.
"Joe's cable ISP includes spam filtering and an Internet security bundle as part of his basic or premium service package. Joe is not in the market for the Mac or Linux."
He should be, for what his cable ISP provides does not solve all the problems. But hey, it's Joe's choice (assuming he even realizes he has a choice, which was my original point). For my sister-in-law, Josephine Average, it was like night and day for her. She loves her new computer and OS. She had no idea things could just work.
Whatsa matter, sport? Courts got you down? They say you have no legal leg to stand on? Don't listen to them! Get your own laws! You write 'em. You pay for 'em. You benefit from 'em.
Ah, good, someone else thought of the mob protection analogy. "Nice computer you have here. Shame if any viruses were to harm it."
What I wonder is why more people (you know, average computer users, not /. posters) don't think about alternative platforms such as Linux or Mac. But last night I was watching the local news and they had one of their typically sweeps-inspired scare stories about how letting your kids use their computer to go to gaming sites will lead to spyware, and adware, and who knows what else! Aaaaaah!
OK, ignoring the stupidity of tying gaming to evil, I found the reporter's conclusion interesting. Noting the steps that could be done to protect yourself, he said keep your OS up-to-date, run anti-virus software, run a firewall, and monitor what your kids do with their computer. I kept waiting for the obvious other solution: Get rid of Windows and move to a Mac. End of problem. I could just imagine the reaction of Joe Average watching this report if the reporter had said, "Or you could just switch to a Mac and have virtually none of these problems." Joe Average would have sat up and said, "What? Really? I had no idea!"
And that's the point, most people have no idea there are alternatives out there that minimize the problem. Not that Linux or OS X-based systems are totally invulnerable, but it's a lot harder for a virus even directed at such OSes to get traction when the first thing they have to do is explicitly ask the user for permission to run and ask for a password!
Watching that news report, I realized this is what my sister-in-law would be going through if she were using a Windows box. She is clueless about computers, checks her email faithfully every month or two whether she needs to or not (sarcasm), and is always connected through broadband. That's a recipe for disaster...except I recommended she get an iMac. Instead of having to clear out adware and spyware every time I visit, she just uses her computer as she wants without any problem in the 2+ years she has had the box. No way a clueless Windows user on broadband would be so lucky, but a clueless Mac user? No phone calls to me with tech support issues in 2+ years. If only more average users knew this kind of computing experience was possible.
Uh, yeah Bill, we've heard this promise before. I'm not holding my breath over any Microsoft promise that ends with "a thing of the past." The past keeps coming back to haunt you with Windows.
However, let's assume this time Microsoft really, really gets it right. If so, it won't be only malware that has a hard time on your computer. With their Palladium-- er sorry, Next Generatio-- er whatever they call it this week, your own software won't trust you. Can I play this music? Dunno, let's ask Microsoft. Can I see this movie? Dunno, let's ask Microsoft. Or more accurately, let's ask the systems Microsoft has put in place to handle permissioning. Yeah, they can isolate malware, but the means by which they will do this will also isolate your own stuff every time it thinks you do not have permission to run/view it.
Thank you! Sadly, it will never work. If I were editor, /. would have fewer self-promotion stories, and lots more pointless but quirkily humorous stories that have nothing to do with technology, is not news for nerds, and hardly contains stuff that matters.
Oh wait, that's the current regime...
I never said anything about right-wing, that was the other guy. And I agree with you about CNN and Time-Warner pushing their own movies. All I was doing was pointing out that this was a non-story story designed to push ticket sales. It just happened to be Murdoch doing it this time.
Ah! You're French. That explains the lack of productivity and willingness to take unnecessary days off.
Somehow, I'm not a bit surprised. :)
Seriously, are we going to help create the maps? No. Are we going to be able to provide assistance in any way? No. Is there anything to see yet? No. So why not post a story once the maps are out?
Why not? Sometimes the right word is just what you need to jog your thinking process in a new (insightful) way. Sometimes just writing a single number can give you insight into life, the universe, and everything:
42
I'd pay real money to see that, actually.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Shhhhh! You'll disturb all those trolls that think Macs can only use one-button mice.
But you are right, what they should be doing is looking after the interests of the general public and checking carefully before rubberstamping permission. All I was doing was speculating on the possible psychology for why there does seem to be a lot of rubberstamping going on.
This makes a certain sense. Law enforcement, both police and judges, must feel they are on the same side and under siege by the forces of crime. After all, that's all they see and work with every day. So just as units of soldiers bond and stand up for each other, I imagine it must be tempting for judges and police to bond, or at least feel they are both working the same job from different angles. So they are probably predisposed to think the police know what they are doing when they ask for a wire-tap. Most of the time, they are probably right.
But yeah, it sure does allow the slip-ups (and the occasional outright corruption) to get through mostly unchallenged. That's the downside, and a good reminder why a citizen should never give their governing structure any kind of power without realizing they will use that power early and often and repeatedly, and when someone becomes corrupt it will get used in a corrupted manner. And with very little in the way of real checks and balances in a practical sense.
I think you are that far off, personally. It's not as if any one of us didn't know this stuff was coming in one form or another. OK, so you find out you get from point A to point B with the line "XYZ" instead of "ABC," but it's not as if any of what he said is earthshakingly new. Of course the link-ups to Star Wars would be there. Of course these plot developments would happen. What did you think this movie would have in it?
In other words, there are some explanations out there other than "MS is biased and there's a conspiracy and they are trying to take over the world"... "
It's called plausible deniability. "Why, no, we had no idea this would happen. You say it's an interaction with an IIS feature that causes this to happen? Heavens to Betsy, we never thought of that."
Microsoft people aren't stupid, and they ARE trying to take over the computer world, or haven't you been paying attention to what they say and what they have done? The engineers that built MSN Search would certainly be aware of any interaction that fits with IIS features to provide enchanced indexing. They would have been all over it from the beginning. And a side-effect means that IIS sites come out higher? Great! It's a feature that benefits us, they would think.
Of course MS is biased. Of course they would have noticed this. Of course they like it.
OK, fair enough, but you may be missing my point too. I realize that most people don't want to get under the hood, but it's good to know that it's allowed for those who want it. There are movements afoot to prevent independent mechanics from working on your car, forcing you to go to the official dealership if you want your car fixed. Similarly, there are indications of a fight against free software. In both cases, that's the freedom I'm talking about, the freedom to have the choice to work on the car/look at the source. Even if you choose not to use that freedom, it's good to know it's there.
"Yawn...I guess I could go vote and get rid of that tyrant who threatens to eliminate free speech...yawn...but I think I'll exercise my freedom and watch this new reality TV show instead."