Eleven and a half percent is not "most of" Bill Gates' holdings. Sure, he sold 11.58% of his holdings in the last two years. Sure, he received proceeds of more than four billion dollars.
You really didn't expect him to live on his $96 million dollar dividend, did you? The guy's got expenses.
Take this latest MS worm issue. Way less severe than previous issues, much better patch distribution time, and generally a much more smooth operation.
Way less severe? A worm transparently takes remote control of all Microsoft OS computers, including Microsofts' "Most secure platform ever", downloads software, crashes networks - even hospitals, colleges, businesses, government agencies and ISPs. Patches not ever available for the huge NT4 installed base. Patches that prevent infection but leave machines vulnerable to reboot every time a reinfection attempt occurs.
"Way less severe" than what? WHOPPR? What's a serious flaw? One where the software launches nuclear missles?
This story from The Register records what can go awry with a plan to inform someone of their security weaknesses.
The short of it: The lad's served his 18 months and is appealing to rescue his reputation.
Be Careful.
This just in: Terminalissimo VT-onehundred-o is still dead.
Thin clients use the server. The server provides the functionality to run the applications. The applications access the Internet. Single point of failure. 'nuff said.
An infrastructure is not ripped out and replaced in a day -- or even two.
Actually it takes about two weeks to image 1,000 boxes with a new image. Did that myself this last month.
I've been on a crew that rolled out to enterprise class installations seven times. Here's what I know:
It doesn't matter what you're setting up -- the image is everything. In the enterprise a gang of really smart people put together the image of one ideal operating "environment" for one PC over the course of a few months. That's their full time job, and they're good at it. It is not trivial putting together a Windows image that works with itself, let alone all of the enterprise's custom apps. Getting a proper Linux image is equally non-trivial. They add things and test them and make sure everything the people use gets tested with everything else. They figure out which service packs break their required components and omit them. They have meetings and brainstorming sessions and teams and "pilot" projects.
Then one day their image is ripe for installation. They hire a gang like ours to go around and put the image onto the hard drives of the day's scheduled customers, and manually set some settings according to a script. Usually hardware upgrades (if any) are installed at the same time. Our crew travels to all their sites and performs similar operations on a regular cycle. Someone on their side performs server-side migrations if necessary. Their helpdesk crew are prepped for issues and ready to roll.
Our gang's favorite upgrade is naturally software-only. No trekking flat panel displays up the stairs and monster CRTs down. As yet we haven't done any Linux migrations, and (gasp) I hope we don't.
I know Linux is better. It's more stable. It's more efficient. It's more compatible. I prefer it. I use it at home. But if our customers find out they can have all of their software for free, and push upgrades down from the server without our help I get these negatives: no more software only upgrades (less work), hardware only upgrades relegate me to delivery boy status rather than tech.
Fortunately for me, our salespeople are unlikely to push a solution that kills their future business (hence violating the goose rule).
Click now to discover whether you are part of the harmed class and can collect on the settlement of up to $3.42 EACH in discounted drive optimizing software and Adservice from DoubleClick when the plaintiff's lawyers take their multimillion dollar paycheck for settling this nuisance case.
What?! You've never heard of any of the following:
-- Terminal Services
-- VNC for Windows
-- Remote Desktop commercial programs
I am sorry, but that is just on crack (and so is whoever modded you "Insightful".) In fact, with Terminal Services and the rdesktop client program, you can even administer a Windows desktop or server from a Linux or Mac box. Yes, you can do remote reboots, remote software patches, remote software upgrades, and pretty much everything else.
You forget that this is/. Most of these people don't need even that much software to remotely "administer" a Windows box. Or the password either for that matter.
Movies take a lot of space. Backing up 200 DVD's and 200 VHS movies takes about 1T. Backups are good. Backups are legal. We should all back up our expensive content to reliable digital media.
And then we should install W98 fileservers in our basements to serve these backups to any room in our homes. Windows file sharing is excellent for this use.
This represents an excellent opportunity for the unemployed to volunteer for community service. If the out-of-work took up the task of filling out this database the benefit to the republic could be remarkable. A mere hundred polspotters in each city could obliterate incompetence by obscurity from the public sphere, and put a good dent in the quid pro quo system as well.
Some ideas:
To defeat nepotism and the system of influencing pols by employing their family members, all family members of pols should be entered with their employment data.
Some feature should be devised to phrase the statement "This person is a member of this group of seven, each of whom is a CEO serving on the board of the other six."
Lastly and most difficult, there are many in public service worthy of respect. Some have surmounted great challenges, some have demonstrated courage in the face of danger, some toil diligently to serve the public weal. I hope that reports of these facts find prominent places within the dataset as well.
For DRM to work, the DRM system has to prevent the presentation of unauthorized content.
RIAA and their pals could downloaded every MP3 and MPG on every p2p network and every ftp site in existence (a herculean task). They could build a list therefrom of forbidden file signatures. They could require the DRM equipment to check their live database for a forbidden signature before presenting the content.
And the next day some wiseacre with nothing better to do would create a filter that permutes the files with unnoticable differences as they're downloading, hence evading the signature police by making every file different.
In China, if performers want to make money they have to perform their material in public and get a share of the gate. That is what the American system should arrive at in a few years, and to quote a suspected felon, "It's a good thing."
Actually that's the point. They're complaining that IBM helped make Linux a better product than their product, and hence destroyed their ability to make money.
On these grounds, of course, Microsoft will soon be suing Linus for Three Trillion Dollars.
Wow. Does your virus scanner have the ability to capture the output of your WebCam, encrypt it and transmit it to unknown parties transparently?
Apparently not only is DRM-enabled windows capable of this, but but your entry into a chain of auto-accepted EULA updates makes it possibly legal.
Do they want to watch you type in your jammies? Probably not, but for some of us entering into a chain of unlimited consent has had unpleasant consequences in the past.
With a list of the most commonly misspelled URLS that don't resolve one could create sites born with much traffic. Advertising dollars follow traffic. Requiring every user of your software to contribute this valuable data without compensation is not fair.
So the idea is that if you pay millions for commercial software, some company you didn't even know you were doing business with can shut you down. But if you use the free software that works better, is more compatible and looks the same, you're good to go.
And this is a problem.
OK, thought I had it. Somebody explain this again.
They have a great many security experts. They hired them to help the marketing folks sling the lingo. Unfortunately (for them) the information flow went the other way and now they wander around mumbling: dark is light. cold is hot. must have dotnet.
Slashdot Mirror
You really didn't expect him to live on his $96 million dollar dividend, did you? The guy's got expenses.
"Way less severe" than what? WHOPPR? What's a serious flaw? One where the software launches nuclear missles?
This story from The Register records what can go awry with a plan to inform someone of their security weaknesses.
The short of it: The lad's served his 18 months and is appealing to rescue his reputation.
Be Careful.
Better yet, people can just mail their CD's to the library, confident that should they want to use it, it'll still be there.
You'll need a biggish room to put them all in.
Thin clients use the server. The server provides the functionality to run the applications. The applications access the Internet. Single point of failure. 'nuff said.
Actually it takes about two weeks to image 1,000 boxes with a new image. Did that myself this last month.
I've been on a crew that rolled out to enterprise class installations seven times. Here's what I know:
It doesn't matter what you're setting up -- the image is everything. In the enterprise a gang of really smart people put together the image of one ideal operating "environment" for one PC over the course of a few months. That's their full time job, and they're good at it. It is not trivial putting together a Windows image that works with itself, let alone all of the enterprise's custom apps. Getting a proper Linux image is equally non-trivial. They add things and test them and make sure everything the people use gets tested with everything else. They figure out which service packs break their required components and omit them. They have meetings and brainstorming sessions and teams and "pilot" projects.
Then one day their image is ripe for installation. They hire a gang like ours to go around and put the image onto the hard drives of the day's scheduled customers, and manually set some settings according to a script. Usually hardware upgrades (if any) are installed at the same time. Our crew travels to all their sites and performs similar operations on a regular cycle. Someone on their side performs server-side migrations if necessary. Their helpdesk crew are prepped for issues and ready to roll.
Our gang's favorite upgrade is naturally software-only. No trekking flat panel displays up the stairs and monster CRTs down. As yet we haven't done any Linux migrations, and (gasp) I hope we don't.
I know Linux is better. It's more stable. It's more efficient. It's more compatible. I prefer it. I use it at home. But if our customers find out they can have all of their software for free, and push upgrades down from the server without our help I get these negatives: no more software only upgrades (less work), hardware only upgrades relegate me to delivery boy status rather than tech.
Fortunately for me, our salespeople are unlikely to push a solution that kills their future business (hence violating the goose rule).
Click now to discover whether you are part of the harmed class and can collect on the settlement of up to $3.42 EACH in discounted drive optimizing software and Adservice from DoubleClick when the plaintiff's lawyers take their multimillion dollar paycheck for settling this nuisance case.
I feel like a refugee from the OS wars. I had found a home and now it's occupied. Somebody tell me where I can go now to escape the FUD.
And half the comments are spam. What a waste of bandwidth.
And then we should install W98 fileservers in our basements to serve these backups to any room in our homes. Windows file sharing is excellent for this use.
Some ideas:
To defeat nepotism and the system of influencing pols by employing their family members, all family members of pols should be entered with their employment data.
Some feature should be devised to phrase the statement "This person is a member of this group of seven, each of whom is a CEO serving on the board of the other six."
Lastly and most difficult, there are many in public service worthy of respect. Some have surmounted great challenges, some have demonstrated courage in the face of danger, some toil diligently to serve the public weal. I hope that reports of these facts find prominent places within the dataset as well.
"When in danger, fear or doubt
run in circles, scream and shout."
That's what this discussion needed: A knot-knot joke. Knot!
We look forward to helping you and your customers meet your business needs for the next twenty years. -- Optimist Darl
For DRM to work, the DRM system has to prevent the presentation of unauthorized content.
RIAA and their pals could downloaded every MP3 and MPG on every p2p network and every ftp site in existence (a herculean task). They could build a list therefrom of forbidden file signatures. They could require the DRM equipment to check their live database for a forbidden signature before presenting the content.
And the next day some wiseacre with nothing better to do would create a filter that permutes the files with unnoticable differences as they're downloading, hence evading the signature police by making every file different.
In China, if performers want to make money they have to perform their material in public and get a share of the gate. That is what the American system should arrive at in a few years, and to quote a suspected felon, "It's a good thing."
We're runnin 'Roms to Sweden!
On these grounds, of course, Microsoft will soon be suing Linus for Three Trillion Dollars.
The contents of this album expire.
This movie sucks.
WARNING! Celine Dion content!!! WARNING!
Wow! That's why they made me sign an NDA that doesn't let me talk about the REAL NDA.
Wow. Does your virus scanner have the ability to capture the output of your WebCam, encrypt it and transmit it to unknown parties transparently? Apparently not only is DRM-enabled windows capable of this, but but your entry into a chain of auto-accepted EULA updates makes it possibly legal. Do they want to watch you type in your jammies? Probably not, but for some of us entering into a chain of unlimited consent has had unpleasant consequences in the past.
With a list of the most commonly misspelled URLS that don't resolve one could create sites born with much traffic. Advertising dollars follow traffic. Requiring every user of your software to contribute this valuable data without compensation is not fair.
So the idea is that if you pay millions for commercial software, some company you didn't even know you were doing business with can shut you down. But if you use the free software that works better, is more compatible and looks the same, you're good to go. And this is a problem. OK, thought I had it. Somebody explain this again.
The aquisition comes with 80,000+ live virus/worm/trojan "samples", 4 of which might work on legacy linux platforms. What might they do with those?
They have a great many security experts. They hired them to help the marketing folks sling the lingo. Unfortunately (for them) the information flow went the other way and now they wander around mumbling: dark is light. cold is hot. must have dotnet.