and be chatting a minute later with no configuration? (the minimum bar that Skype has set)
The problem here is that anything non-proprietary will always require some configuration purely because it won't be locked to a specific service provider.... which is the whole point of having non-proprietary stuff. But frankly, setting up a SIP client is as trivial as setting up your email client, or your XMPP client - you fill in the server that your account is on, your user name and password and it works.
What you're asking for is equivalent to "show me where I can buy an unlocked cellphone that isn't tied to any service provider but doesn't involve me finding a service provider to use" - you can't have one without the other (although admittedly it is a bit better in the cellphone market because at least all the telcos interoperate with eachother so you can at least phone people who are on a different telco).
The closest you can get are service providers who ship preconfigured SIP clients (either software or hardware). There are actually a lot of these, such as Sipgate, etc. But they are smaller companies than Skype and thusly have less public mindshare.
the SIP community has failed to cater even remotely to the only crowd that will actually make SIP relevant on the desktop
Here I disagree - A *lot* of people use SIP, both on and off the desktop. It may not have the mind share that Skype has, but it is still in heavy use. Another thing is that Skype is a service whereas SIP is a protocol - SIP is used across many service providers and people may not even know that that's what they are using.
I so wish I was wrong about this and there did exist a SIP client where I could email to my non-techy friends and have them chatting in minutes
You can already do this - most of the SIP gateways already supply one. I already pointed to Sipgate as an example - sign up with them and they will let you download a softphone that is preconfigured with your account details, or purchase a hard phone that is preconfigured. Most of the service providers do something similar.
Maybe the schools shouldn't have become reliant on google and hosted their own services or should just migrate to a new service.
I'm not expressing any opinion on what the schools should have done with regards to Google services. I'm simply saying that it reflects badly on Google and thus reduces the value of their services to everyone.
Businesses do it all the time when a service stops meeting their needs, they call it upgrading.
There is a _big_ difference between choosing to upgrade because a service doesn't quite do what you want anymore, and being forced to take some action *immediately* because the service provider has done something, without notice, that *prevents* you from using the service you have become reliant on.
Would any rightminded company want to become utterly reliant on a Google service after seeing that Google can and will make that service unusable without notice? That is what I am talking about when I say it reduces the value of Google's services - and this is why it is a problem for Google themselves.
I see a number of philosophical issues here, not the least of which is your default assumption that school Internet *must* be filtered.
This isn't my assumption, it is my experience that the vast majority of schools want filtering. Here, in the private sector this is left up to the school and for state schools it is generally handled centrally by the LEA.
When you are teaching (i.e. standing in front of the class lecturing) no one should be messing with the computers.
That very much depends on the type of subject you are lecturing. For something like maths then you're probably right. For an IT class then you're dead wrong.
Expecting perfect protection of not just just the bodies, but the mind and souls of schools children is unreasonable.
Who said anything about perfect? No one (should) expect perfect protection, but there is reason to expect a school to do everything in their power, which includes using filtering software if that is deemed appropriate by the school or authorities.
What are search results, ans why does it matter if the school can watch them? If I type "really raunchy man porn" into Google the results I get are not actually porn. They're links to sites which contain porn and should be filtered already (assuming you're relying on filters to begin with).
Filters are not 100% accurate so it is important to use every possible opportunity to filter inappropriate content - search results are often trivially filterable in cases where the final destination sites aren't and stopping kids _finding_ the content in the first place is half the battle. There are also some very useful things you can do with search queries, such as modifying them on-the-fly to force strict safesearch on (which is something google specifically recommend and something that SSL search renders useless). Forcing safesearch on has the advantage that inappropriate links don't even appear in the search results, which spares the user the frustration of (innocently) clicking on a link and finding the page blocked.
A lot of people have commented, WRT to this problem, that there is no point in filtering search results; and that demonstrates a complete lack of experience with writing filtering systems and assumes that filtering of the final sites can be done with extremely high accuracy. This is not the case, and if you take away one of the filtering vectors (e.g. the search results) then the only thing you can do is make the filters stricter to try and catch more of the destination sites; resulting in more false positives.
2) You are school that uses an SSL filtering system to limit what students can and can't get too.
You don't mean "SSL filtering system" - you mean "web filtering system". The point of this article is that, up until the SSL search was introduced, filtering systems worked just fine since the search requests were in the clear and therefore filterable with a suitable proxy server (no SSL involved). Since the introduction of the SSL search, there is a requirement to block SSL access to Google in order to maintain the existing (non-SSL) filtering functionality.
Google releases a service that for the VAST majority of its customers increases privacy and security
It does? I imagine the VAST majority of Google's customers have never heard of, and do not use the SSL search service. Sure, it gives the majority of the customers the *option* of increasing privacy (although I would dispute security since we're only talking about search here), but in reality very few will actually exercise this option.
it also unfortunately breaks Google's (free) educational services *if and only if* the schools are using SSL filtering software to limit what students can and can't get to, *and* those schools choose to block Google's SSL searches using this software.
Most schools really don't have much option here - they *have* to block Google's SSL search service because filtering of searches is an absolute requirement for these schools. Of course, the whole problem could've been avoided if Google had thought ahead a little bit.
You are now saying that Google should roll back this new service, which is beneficial to a large number of Google's income generating users; so that you can figure out how to make your software, that schools paid you to for, work in such that it allows them to continue using Google's free educational offering.
No. I'm saying that it might be an idea for Google to temporarily roll back this new service, which relatively few of their income generating users will be using; until such a time that they can resolve these issues (which is simply a case of shuffling some stuff onto subdomains).
I want to reiterate a couple of facts:
Filtering is absolutely mandatory for most schools.
There is no "figuring out how to make the software work in such that it allows them to continue using Google's free educational offering [whilst continuing to filter web searches]". This is not something that is technically possible(*) and the ball is therefore firmly in Google's court. Google are the only people with the power to fix this for they are the only people who can make the necessary configuration changes to their servers.
(* yes, performing MITM SSL attacks is technically feasible, but extremely legally dubious and probably not something Google wants to encourage).
Google is offering two completely independent services, both of them free of charge to the user.
Correct. And unfortunately the new service has introduced a problem affecting the second service which makes *both services* fundamentally incompatible with the requirement's of the second service's users.
If you want to use one, but block the other, that's your problem not Google's.
Well no, it is Google's problem because the introduction of a new service has automatically excluded a lot of customers from an existing service. Whilst you consider these services to be "free", Google *is* making money from them and that income is reduced if they lose users, so introducing a new service that loses them a load of existing users really is a problem for them.
There is also a PR problem - Google has demonstrated that becoming reliant on one of their services may be a bad idea because they can, without notice, do something that makes it impossible for you to use the thing you rely on.
I like how you don't consider it an option to stop using your product, or others like it.:P
I like it how you didn't bother to read my post - if you had you would've seen that I had expressly addressed this option. To quote the bit you didn't read: "Most of the schools seem to consider unfiltered searches to be unacceptable".
Full disclosure: I am involved with Opendium who produce web content filtering software for schools.
The content filters are the ones being paid to deliver a service and the burden of cooperation should be placed on them.
I'm not sure what you mean by this.
With the introduction of Google Search over SSL, the content filter maintainers were faced with a choice: allow unfiltered searches (which essentially defeats the purpose of the content filters), or block google apps. There is no middle ground - there is no magic technological solution to make it all work. Most of the schools seem to consider unfiltered searches to be unacceptable so the choice was reasonably obvious. The software my company produces allows schools to have control over their own filtering, so for my customers the choice was up to them; notably the SWGFL also made the choice available to the individual schools by allowing them to submit an "unblock Google for our network please" request.
I should note that when Google introduced the SSL search service, the problems were immediately obvious and I emailed Google to ask if they would work with us to resolve the problem; Google have not responded directly to my email at all; instead they just posted to their blog to say they would work on it "in a few weeks".
they have no legal liability to
Lets be clear on this: *no one* has a legal liability to resolve these problems and the only people with the technical ability to resolve them are Google (for the only technical resolution involves changing the configuration of Google's servers). But it doesn't reflect well on Google when they market a service (Apps for Education) that many schools then become reliant on, and then introduce a new, unrelated, service that essentially leaves the schools with no choice but to block access to the apps they have come to rely on. Even worse when this doesn't get resolved in a timely way.
I should also point out that Google have historically been pretty good at supporting people's requirement to filter questionable content and have published recommendations about how to interact with Google's services in order to do this. The introduction of the SSL search service essentially rendered a lot of their own recommendations useless.
It is good that Google have recognised that this is an issue, it just seems that they haven't acted very quickly to resolve it or even temporarily work around it.
Full disclosure: I am involved with Opendium who produce web content filtering software for schools.
OK, so what about the student with the 3G iPad?
Sure, you can't prevent pupils from accessing questionable content on their own internet connections. But that isn't such a big problem.
Kids need *an* internet connection for their education - the school provides this and implements filters to ensure that this internet connection is "safe" (we'll come onto "safe" later). If pupils have their own equipment then the school need to police it's use manually; but they can be much more draconian with the way they handle it - if a pupil is caught surfing porn on their 3G iPad then the school can just plain confiscate it and inform the parents. The pupil does not *need* that equipment for their education - if they abuse the privilege of having their own equipment then they forfeit it and have use the school's equipment instead.
Also, importantly from a PR perspective, if this is happening on the pupil's own equipment and connection then it won't be seen as the school's fault (it is more like the kid going to the corner shop and buying Playboy - hardly something the school can prevent, although they would probably confiscate the magazine if they saw it); whereas if kids are actively surfing porn on the school's equipment/connection then the school is seen by many to be failing in their duty of care. Silly, I know, but I have seen schools getting some seriously bad PR from the tabloids because little Johnny got at dodgy websites through the school's computers - remember that news papers don't care about news these days, they are more interested in a sensationalist story with a definite villain in it.
As for what is "safe", filtering is basically about 3 things:
Stopping people accidentally stumbling across content they really don't want to see (this is a big deal for protecting the younger age groups
Stopping people getting to questionable content they want to see (could be porn, info on how to set up a drugs lab, electronic bullying of some poor sucker in the class, etc.)
Stopping people getting distracted (surfing facebook in lessons instead of paying attention to the teacher is of no educational value)
Different schools have different attitudes to how strict they want to be. Something my customers often find very useful to help deal with distractions is the ability to set certain websites, such as facebook, games, etc. to be off-limits during lesson times but allowed during breaks - this seems like a very fair balance to me. Another thing quite common amongst my customers is to use more relaxed controls for older kids since there are websites the older kids may legitimately want to see (e.g. sexual health sites, etc.) that you wouldn't want the younger kids to stumble across.
Something that I've noticed amongst people commenting on these subjects on the internet is that they frequently fall into one of two camps:
All filtering is evil, no school should take away a 6 year old's god given right to watch 2g1c and thus anyone involved in writing filtering software is also evil.
There is absolutely no need to filter search results because you can just filter the actual site when the user tries to go there.
To address (1) first - I am usually the last person to promote censorship, but I do believe that schools have a responsibility to protect kids from the content on the internet. Most parents seem to agree. If you, as a parent, disagree with this then you are free to let your child have free reign on the internet from home; just don't expect this to happen on school equipment. As someone involved in writing filtering software, I certainly don't see myself as "evil" - I don't set policies on what gets filtered, I simply provide the tools to allow those in charge to do what they believe is the responsible thing. Note that I am only saying that censorship
Yes, it is. If someone's bank account gets compromised because you were performing a MITM attack on their SSL session then you can bet there will be some quite serious questions levelled at you.
There are techniques for doing man-in-the-middle attacks against the SSL session which allows for inspection of SSL traffic. It's a premium feature though and I imagine schools don't want to pay for too much extra.
Doing MITM attacks on SSL sessions where you control the browser is trivial - you just import a new trusted root cert into the browser and have a proxy decrypt the SSL session and re-encrypt it using a certificate signed by the newly trusted cert.
There may also be legal issues with it, but I don't know about those.
I run a company producing filtering software for schools and we absolutely refuse to do these sorts of MITM attacks because we believe that there are serious legal issues. If someone's bank account, credit card, etc. gets compromised because a school is running MITM attacks on SSL sessions then the school, and possibly the producer of the filtering software, are probably going to be quite liable. The techies at our customers seem to agree with our assessment and are happy to have an all-or-nothing approach to SSL (i.e. they can block or allow by domain name, but that's as far as the filtering goes).
So far we haven't had to explain our position to the management types who might not properly understand the implications of attacking SSL sessions; however I'm sure that it will come up at some point since there are a number of competitors advertising that they can filter content being transferred over SSL.
On the Google front, it's certainly good that they are addressing the problem, but it seems to me that it is too late and too slow - this stuff should have been considered *before* the roll-out of SSL search (it was blindingly obvious to everyone in the content filtering industry how big a problem this was going to be as soon as Google announced it); and the amount of time it is taking for them to sort it out once the problem was discovered is far too long. Since this has effectively prevented a lot of schools from accessing the Google Apps for Education for several weeks, I would have thought the best solution would have been to temporarilly disable search over SSL again until all the problems had been resolved. Also, it has always struck me that bundling all the separate services under a single domain name is crazy - it's just asking for the rollout of one new service to badly impact an existing service.
No. Kids don't have instinctive responses to particular web pages
If you think this then you haven't dealt with many teenage kids.
adults who think that implied disgust and taking away of information are correct ways of providing education.
Who said anything about providing education?
I'm pretty anti-censorship and think that people should have access to whatever information they like. *However* I'm not crazy enough to believe that the very young are capable of dealing with all that information - they should only get access to some of it when they have matured to the point of being able to deal with it.
There are 3 things that kids need protecting against: 1. accidentally stumbling across content. Do you really want primary school kids accidentally stumbling across the likes of 2g1c? Plenty of adults find it quite traumatising, let alone kids who haven't been prepared through life experience. 2. intentionally finding content. Do you want kids to know how to set up their own drugs lab before they have the life experience to understand the consequences of drug use? Also, things like electronic bullying are real problems causing real harm. 3. distracting content. When kids are in lessons, they frequently do need access to the internet. But giving them access to the likes of facebook is really distracting (even employers have a problem with this, let alone schools!). There is a certain amount of policing that can be done by the teachers, but filtering systems help a lot.
Once they have the life experience to deal with this stuff then by all means, let them access it. If you, as a parent, disagree with this sort of censorship then you are well within your rights to allow your kids to access this content in their own time from home, but they certainly shouldn't be accessing it in school where they can inflict it on other kids, whose parents almost certainly disagree with you.
It's an enhancement that isn't a disadvantage for the user, so we should welcome it.
And if it also prevents man in the middle hacking of web pages it's a good thing.
Actually, this is going to be a big problem for me. I write software to protect school kids from getting to (accidentally or intentionally) dodgy content - this is anything from porn, to sites promoting violence/drugs/etc. Schools usually restrict HTTPS access to a few specific sites since HTTPS is basically unfilterable.
The problem here is that Google has grouped everything they do under a single domain. There is now no way I can allow HTTPS access to the various google apps (which is sensible since things like login details really should be sent encrypted) whilst forcing the web searches to be transmitted (and therefore filtered) in the clear.
He's talking about EU jurisdictions. And it is the law here, rightly or wrongly.
Umm, no it isn't. Here in the UK (which is an "EU jurisdiction") you can most certainly take photos of pretty much anything in a public place. There are laws regarding what you can _publish_ without people consenting, but you're free to take photos for personal use.
This is why there has been such an uproar about the police confiscating cameras, etc. when people take photos of them, because (no matter what the police claim when they confiscate the photos) it is completely legal for people to do so.
You can perfectly legally watch me go down the street, but in most jurisdictions you better have a damned good reason if you're filming me.
Which jurisdictions are these? In most jurisdictions, you're well within your rights to film pretty much anything happening in a public place. You might not be able to _publish_ that film without consent, but that is different.
Average Joe user may have absolutely no clue his WAP is broadcasting in the clear, nor should he be required to have that technical talent
Why? Why should people expect complex technology to do what they want without having any understanding about how to make it do that?
anymore than we should all be expected to be car mechanics
Of course we don't all need to be car mechanics. However, cars are not designed to work perfectly for their whole lives without a mechanic doing some work either. Most people understand that they need to get their car serviced - if they can do this themselves then fine, but those that can't can take it to a professional to be serviced. Why is wifi so different? If you can set it up yourself then fine, otherwise damned well pay a professional to do it for you.
Complaining that your wifi is insecure (because you didn't know how to set it up) is like complaining that your car broke because you didn't understand how to service it - in both cases, if you didn't understand how to do it you should damned well have paid someone who did.
Oh. You implied that your company does its own hiring. Since you have corrected me, that means that you don't do your own hiring, so your views are irrelevant.
We do, but that is a tiny part of the company's business. And no, we don't have an HR department.
Funny, when I send stuff, I actually ask them
Really? That's at odds with what you already said - you previously said that you didn't care if the media you sent could only be used on Windows, and you based this on the explicit assumption that the people you sent it to would be using Windows rather than asking them first.
rather than dictating what they *should* be using, as you are.
No, really I'm not. If you think I am then you clearly need to go educate yourself what the term "platform agnostic" means.
You stated that you would happily send content that could only be used by Windows machines because you made the assumption that the recipient would always be using Windows. This means you are dictating to people what you expect them to use to read content that you sent.
On the other hand, I said that this assumption is not valid and that it would be more sensible to use a platform agnostic format. I did not state or dictate what OS the recipient would be using and I did not state or dictate what OS you would be using. If you are using a platform agnostic format then these things are irrelevant.
There's nothing I hate more than when someone sends me a GIS file in what they assume is the most interoperable, rather than just asking.
Asking is fine, but you didn't say that - instead, you said that you expected the recipient to always use Windows.
Also, remember we're talking about a CV here, not a GIS file. There are different criteria at work here - if you are sending someone something informational, such as a CV then sending it in a read only presentation format is fine (in fact, a good idea - I sure as hell don't want someone editing my CV, intentionally or otherwise). If you're sending someone something that you expect them to need to edit then sending it in an uneditable format would be pretty silly.
You dictate what they should be using by unilaterally deciding what will work on pretty much any system
I'm not making any such decision. The decision is made by what software is available for each platform. Going back to the example given in the original post, ISO9660 format can be read by practically every system with a CDROM drive, UDF less so and the unspecified Windows-XP-only format originally proposed would clearly be worse. None of these are my decisions - this is simply a case of looking at what the most widely supported format is. Clearly ISO9660 is the most sensible format - it does not exclude anyone who could have read one of the other formats and it includes extra people who couldn't. The only reasons for distributing your CV in an unspecified windows-only format instead of ISO9660 are lazyness, cluelessness or an intentional effort to reduce the number of people who can read the content - all three of these reasons seem like pretty silly ones if you're applying for jobs.
Wait, you want people to open it, but you aren't assuming that the vast majority of computers have Windows installed on them?
No. I would want people to open it and I don't care what OS they are using because I would be using a platform agnostic format. Platform agnostic means that it doesn't matter what OS they are using. What the majority of computers are running is irrelevant.
I declare they *are* using Windows.
And the existence of companies that don't use Windows proves you wrong.
It's like the banks that build their sites for Windows only. They lose so few customers over it (if any) that they are still making plenty of money.
This has nothing to do with being "purposefully obtuse" and everything to do with picking the best system for the job at hand.
If the "job at hand" is to receive random submissions by the general public, then it either needs to be interoperable with Windows, or it is not the best system for the job at hand.
But that isn't what my company does...
As I said, deliberately obtuse.
There is nothing "obtuse" about it. Yes, it is a deliberate decision, but it was made for solid reasons, not because we wanted to be obtuse.
You decide what everyone else should be using
No. I already said - people should be using the right tool for the job they are doing. If Windows is the best thing for you then use Windows, if Linux is the best thing for me I'll use Linux. Someone else might be using OS X, BSD, Solaris, whatever because *it is the best thing for the job they are doing*.
You are the one deciding that everyone must use Windows and refusing to interact with anyone who doesn't. When I send media to people, I send it in a format that will work on pretty much any system instead of trying to dictate to them what they should be using.
knowing it's not what they are using
I don't pretend to know what arbitrary people are using. Assuming they are using the same system as myself would be pretty arrogant, so I try to do things in a platform agnostic way so that it doesn't matter. Frankly, I don't *care* what system someone is using - the only time it becomes important is when dealing with an arrogant individual who insists on dictating that everyone must work the same way.
then hold it against them if they aren't guessing that you are one of the tiny minority not using Windows.
Your need to guess what OS someone is using demonstrates a flaw on your part.
If you want something (e.g. a job), making the people who can give you that thing go unnecessarily out of their way is a pretty silly idea - it isn't as if doing things in a platform agnostic way is hard, it just requires a bit of common sense.
I guess I am holding a lack of common sense against people - I'm not really interested in employing someone who doesn't have the mental skills to figure this stuff out. Dictating to a potential employer what software they should be using doesn't leave a good impression, in much the same way as submitting a CV scrawled in purple crayon doesn't.
You sound like a pompous ass.
Not really. I'm interested in employing people who have the mental ability to do the job. Your CV is part of the process of discovering if a potential employee has got what it takes. A fixed "I use software X so everyone else must use software X" or "you should use software X because everyone else does (rather than it being a good candidate for the job at hand" attitude is a negative strike against you because it demonstrates that your attitude may well not be suited to the job you are applying for.
This is nothing to do with "being pompous" and everything to do with wanting the best employees.
"Would you like to explain to me what benefit my company would get from [running windows]?" as a challenge when you don't even tell me what you do?
I write software to run on Linux servers, and do IPv4 and IPv6 network design, security and problem solving consultancy. Windows is not really useful for any of these things - the tools for these jobs happen to be much better under Unix type systems. Switching to Windows would simply get me a more expensive system with inferior tools.
That you think your personal experience is somehow representative (despite the fact it's directly contradictory to the statistics available) makes you a pompous ass. And that you think I'd be upset if I presented my resume in a manner that would improve my ch
the point is that you said you _didn't care_ whether non-windows systems could read it
I don't. You are posting about your company in the UK (I'm guessing) so it's illegal for me to work there.
The country involved seems pretty irrelevant - this is an example of just one company, I'm sure there are plenty of similar companies in the US.
Also, those in the US, unless staffed by pompous asses that no one would want to work for anyway, realize that Windows is the de facto standard.
It may be a defacto standard, but it is expensive and offers nothing useful that my company can't get elsewhere (for less money and less hassle). Supporting Windows machines increases the administration costs - would you like to explain to me what benefit my company would get from doing so (and if the answer is purely that we gain the ability to read the CVs from people who don't have a lot of common sense then I'd suggest that we're not missing out on much)?
Anyone who doesn't interoperate with Windows does so purposefully and by their own choosing.
Well yes, but the reasoning behind this is often sound.
If some company chooses to go out of their way to be purposefully obtuse
This has nothing to do with being "purposefully obtuse" and everything to do with picking the best system for the job at hand. I would find it concerning if a company wasted resources using a system that was more expensive than an alternative system which was as or more suitable.
The company I run has no use for Windows systems - pretty much everything we do can be done as well or better on Linux systems for a much lower cost. This means that we have more money to invest in things that _actually_ matter and thus the whole company is better off. I would venture that the company is also better off avoiding employing people with an extremely closed "must run Windows because everyone else does" mindset, so I don't have a lot of problem with ignoring CVs from people such as yourself.
It should be noted that I don't have anything specifically against Windows or any other system - if it is the best tool for the job then by all means that is what should be used; it is just that in my business I have usually found that there are better and cheaper alternatives, which are more suitable for the job in hand, if you just look past popularity..
Then you will be able to use Open Office to open it, so I am unclear why you are speaking as if Microsoft Doc format is some enigma.
Who said anything about Doc format? The post you were replying to was asking if XP wrote CDs in ISO9660 format or "some weird packet writing format". You replied saying that you didn't care because you could guarantee that it would be opened on a Windows machine.
I am simply pointing out that there is no such guarantee - some companies (such as mine) are Linux-only shops, others are Apple-only shops. So you _should_ care whether or not you are supplying your CV in a format that can be universally read.
(for the record, AFAIK XP uses UDF packet writing to burn CDs, which is supported by Linux, but that isn't the point - the point is that you said you _didn't care_ whether non-windows systems could read it).
Does the copy to CD feature in XP create an ISO-9660 compatible CD file system, or even Joliet? I thought it was some weird packet writing format.
We are talking about resumes. I don't know and don't care because the person being handed that will be putting it in a Microsoft-based computer anyway.
Really? If you submit your CV to my company I can guarantee you that it won't be read on a MS based computer because my company doesn't _have_ any MS based computers. We are exclusively Linux based and if your CV can't be read on a stock Fedora workstation it is liable to be filed in the bin. (Also, as a side note, if you submit your CV in a non-portable format we are liable to label you a bit of an idiot, even if we can read it, so it doesn't help your employment prospects too much).
I'm not bashing PDF, but just pointing out that PDF writers are rare. Windows doesn't have default printer drivers that write to PDF, Word doesn't have a save-as-PDF option that I can find.
Included for free with Mac, so they don't have to worry about Word compatibility, and there are tons of free print-to-PDF solutions out there.
OpenOffice has a PDF exporter (although oddly it gives inferior results than printing to a postscript file and running pstopdf on the result).
I'd rather the government not control business that much.
All I can say is it works pretty well here in the UK.
If you want a subsidised phone then they are available, if you want to just get a SIM on whatever plan you like then they are available too.
I bought my HTC Dream outright for £140 and put a PAYG SIM in it. Costs me about £5 every 2 or 3 months. Doing the maths, that gives me a TCO of around £170-190 over the first 18 months - a much better deal than a subsidised phone because I get to choose a tariff that fits my usage instead of what the telco wants to sell me.
For instance, what happens to every customer (like my parents for example) that keep their phones longer than 2 years. Would their plans suddenly have to come down in price once they were no longer subdizing the cost of a phone?
This is exactly why the market needs to change - people replace their perfectly good phone every year or two because the telco gives them a "free" upgrade. Most people don't need to replace their phone and would save money if the telco offered them a reduction in the contract price in exchange for not upgrading, but they aren't given this option. And that's before you consider the horrendous environmental impact of everyone throwing out their phones for no good reason.
You may or may not be able to actually stop the phone from trying to access mobile data - there isn't an option in the settings to disable it.
Edit the APN settings and change them to something invalid. No, I don't know why there isn't a button to turn off data entirely, but this method is trivial and doesn't require any rooting.
If you find something, try to turn it in like the iPhone finder did by calling Apple, and Apple thinks it's a hoax and says no, it seems to me that it's his to treat as his own.
Then it seems to you wrong. He was legally required to hand it to the police. Instead he sold it for much wonga.
And if you think a first line support dweeb at *any* reasonably big company is going to know about a lost prototype, you're sorely mistaken; secrecy or no.
As much as I like to see Apple getting their arse handed to them, there's no excuse for breaking the law.
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and be chatting a minute later with no configuration? (the minimum bar that Skype has set)
The problem here is that anything non-proprietary will always require some configuration purely because it won't be locked to a specific service provider.... which is the whole point of having non-proprietary stuff. But frankly, setting up a SIP client is as trivial as setting up your email client, or your XMPP client - you fill in the server that your account is on, your user name and password and it works.
What you're asking for is equivalent to "show me where I can buy an unlocked cellphone that isn't tied to any service provider but doesn't involve me finding a service provider to use" - you can't have one without the other (although admittedly it is a bit better in the cellphone market because at least all the telcos interoperate with eachother so you can at least phone people who are on a different telco).
The closest you can get are service providers who ship preconfigured SIP clients (either software or hardware). There are actually a lot of these, such as Sipgate, etc. But they are smaller companies than Skype and thusly have less public mindshare.
the SIP community has failed to cater even remotely to the only crowd that will actually make SIP relevant on the desktop
Here I disagree - A *lot* of people use SIP, both on and off the desktop. It may not have the mind share that Skype has, but it is still in heavy use. Another thing is that Skype is a service whereas SIP is a protocol - SIP is used across many service providers and people may not even know that that's what they are using.
I so wish I was wrong about this and there did exist a SIP client where I could email to my non-techy friends and have them chatting in minutes
You can already do this - most of the SIP gateways already supply one. I already pointed to Sipgate as an example - sign up with them and they will let you download a softphone that is preconfigured with your account details, or purchase a hard phone that is preconfigured. Most of the service providers do something similar.
Maybe the schools shouldn't have become reliant on google and hosted their own services or should just migrate to a new service.
I'm not expressing any opinion on what the schools should have done with regards to Google services. I'm simply saying that it reflects badly on Google and thus reduces the value of their services to everyone.
Businesses do it all the time when a service stops meeting their needs, they call it upgrading.
There is a _big_ difference between choosing to upgrade because a service doesn't quite do what you want anymore, and being forced to take some action *immediately* because the service provider has done something, without notice, that *prevents* you from using the service you have become reliant on.
Would any rightminded company want to become utterly reliant on a Google service after seeing that Google can and will make that service unusable without notice? That is what I am talking about when I say it reduces the value of Google's services - and this is why it is a problem for Google themselves.
if the primary purpose of your trip is tourism. 1) "Do you speak English?" and 2) "Where is the bathroom?"
3) "Peint o gwrw, os gwelwch yn dda"
I see a number of philosophical issues here, not the least of which is your default assumption that school Internet *must* be filtered.
This isn't my assumption, it is my experience that the vast majority of schools want filtering. Here, in the private sector this is left up to the school and for state schools it is generally handled centrally by the LEA.
When you are teaching (i.e. standing in front of the class lecturing) no one should be messing with the computers.
That very much depends on the type of subject you are lecturing. For something like maths then you're probably right. For an IT class then you're dead wrong.
Expecting perfect protection of not just just the bodies, but the mind and souls of schools children is unreasonable.
Who said anything about perfect? No one (should) expect perfect protection, but there is reason to expect a school to do everything in their power, which includes using filtering software if that is deemed appropriate by the school or authorities.
What are search results, ans why does it matter if the school can watch them? If I type "really raunchy man porn" into Google the results I get are not actually porn. They're links to sites which contain porn and should be filtered already (assuming you're relying on filters to begin with).
Filters are not 100% accurate so it is important to use every possible opportunity to filter inappropriate content - search results are often trivially filterable in cases where the final destination sites aren't and stopping kids _finding_ the content in the first place is half the battle. There are also some very useful things you can do with search queries, such as modifying them on-the-fly to force strict safesearch on (which is something google specifically recommend and something that SSL search renders useless). Forcing safesearch on has the advantage that inappropriate links don't even appear in the search results, which spares the user the frustration of (innocently) clicking on a link and finding the page blocked.
A lot of people have commented, WRT to this problem, that there is no point in filtering search results; and that demonstrates a complete lack of experience with writing filtering systems and assumes that filtering of the final sites can be done with extremely high accuracy. This is not the case, and if you take away one of the filtering vectors (e.g. the search results) then the only thing you can do is make the filters stricter to try and catch more of the destination sites; resulting in more false positives.
2) You are school that uses an SSL filtering system to limit what students can and can't get too.
You don't mean "SSL filtering system" - you mean "web filtering system". The point of this article is that, up until the SSL search was introduced, filtering systems worked just fine since the search requests were in the clear and therefore filterable with a suitable proxy server (no SSL involved). Since the introduction of the SSL search, there is a requirement to block SSL access to Google in order to maintain the existing (non-SSL) filtering functionality.
Google releases a service that for the VAST majority of its customers increases privacy and security
It does? I imagine the VAST majority of Google's customers have never heard of, and do not use the SSL search service. Sure, it gives the majority of the customers the *option* of increasing privacy (although I would dispute security since we're only talking about search here), but in reality very few will actually exercise this option.
it also unfortunately breaks Google's (free) educational services *if and only if* the schools are using SSL filtering software to limit what students can and can't get to, *and* those schools choose to block Google's SSL searches using this software.
Most schools really don't have much option here - they *have* to block Google's SSL search service because filtering of searches is an absolute requirement for these schools. Of course, the whole problem could've been avoided if Google had thought ahead a little bit.
You are now saying that Google should roll back this new service, which is beneficial to a large number of Google's income generating users; so that you can figure out how to make your software, that schools paid you to for, work in such that it allows them to continue using Google's free educational offering.
No. I'm saying that it might be an idea for Google to temporarily roll back this new service, which relatively few of their income generating users will be using; until such a time that they can resolve these issues (which is simply a case of shuffling some stuff onto subdomains).
I want to reiterate a couple of facts:
(* yes, performing MITM SSL attacks is technically feasible, but extremely legally dubious and probably not something Google wants to encourage).
Google is offering two completely independent services, both of them free of charge to the user.
Correct. And unfortunately the new service has introduced a problem affecting the second service which makes *both services* fundamentally incompatible with the requirement's of the second service's users.
If you want to use one, but block the other, that's your problem not Google's.
Well no, it is Google's problem because the introduction of a new service has automatically excluded a lot of customers from an existing service. Whilst you consider these services to be "free", Google *is* making money from them and that income is reduced if they lose users, so introducing a new service that loses them a load of existing users really is a problem for them.
There is also a PR problem - Google has demonstrated that becoming reliant on one of their services may be a bad idea because they can, without notice, do something that makes it impossible for you to use the thing you rely on.
I like how you don't consider it an option to stop using your product, or others like it. :P
I like it how you didn't bother to read my post - if you had you would've seen that I had expressly addressed this option. To quote the bit you didn't read: "Most of the schools seem to consider unfiltered searches to be unacceptable".
[Citation Needed]
I'm not citing any facts, I am expressing an opinion. Slashdot is not an encyclopaedia, opinions without citations are valid.
Full disclosure: I am involved with Opendium who produce web content filtering software for schools.
The content filters are the ones being paid to deliver a service and the burden of cooperation should be placed on them.
I'm not sure what you mean by this.
With the introduction of Google Search over SSL, the content filter maintainers were faced with a choice: allow unfiltered searches (which essentially defeats the purpose of the content filters), or block google apps. There is no middle ground - there is no magic technological solution to make it all work. Most of the schools seem to consider unfiltered searches to be unacceptable so the choice was reasonably obvious. The software my company produces allows schools to have control over their own filtering, so for my customers the choice was up to them; notably the SWGFL also made the choice available to the individual schools by allowing them to submit an "unblock Google for our network please" request.
I should note that when Google introduced the SSL search service, the problems were immediately obvious and I emailed Google to ask if they would work with us to resolve the problem; Google have not responded directly to my email at all; instead they just posted to their blog to say they would work on it "in a few weeks".
they have no legal liability to
Lets be clear on this: *no one* has a legal liability to resolve these problems and the only people with the technical ability to resolve them are Google (for the only technical resolution involves changing the configuration of Google's servers). But it doesn't reflect well on Google when they market a service (Apps for Education) that many schools then become reliant on, and then introduce a new, unrelated, service that essentially leaves the schools with no choice but to block access to the apps they have come to rely on. Even worse when this doesn't get resolved in a timely way.
I should also point out that Google have historically been pretty good at supporting people's requirement to filter questionable content and have published recommendations about how to interact with Google's services in order to do this. The introduction of the SSL search service essentially rendered a lot of their own recommendations useless.
It is good that Google have recognised that this is an issue, it just seems that they haven't acted very quickly to resolve it or even temporarily work around it.
Full disclosure: I am involved with Opendium who produce web content filtering software for schools.
OK, so what about the student with the 3G iPad?
Sure, you can't prevent pupils from accessing questionable content on their own internet connections. But that isn't such a big problem.
Kids need *an* internet connection for their education - the school provides this and implements filters to ensure that this internet connection is "safe" (we'll come onto "safe" later). If pupils have their own equipment then the school need to police it's use manually; but they can be much more draconian with the way they handle it - if a pupil is caught surfing porn on their 3G iPad then the school can just plain confiscate it and inform the parents. The pupil does not *need* that equipment for their education - if they abuse the privilege of having their own equipment then they forfeit it and have use the school's equipment instead.
Also, importantly from a PR perspective, if this is happening on the pupil's own equipment and connection then it won't be seen as the school's fault (it is more like the kid going to the corner shop and buying Playboy - hardly something the school can prevent, although they would probably confiscate the magazine if they saw it); whereas if kids are actively surfing porn on the school's equipment/connection then the school is seen by many to be failing in their duty of care. Silly, I know, but I have seen schools getting some seriously bad PR from the tabloids because little Johnny got at dodgy websites through the school's computers - remember that news papers don't care about news these days, they are more interested in a sensationalist story with a definite villain in it.
As for what is "safe", filtering is basically about 3 things:
Different schools have different attitudes to how strict they want to be. Something my customers often find very useful to help deal with distractions is the ability to set certain websites, such as facebook, games, etc. to be off-limits during lesson times but allowed during breaks - this seems like a very fair balance to me. Another thing quite common amongst my customers is to use more relaxed controls for older kids since there are websites the older kids may legitimately want to see (e.g. sexual health sites, etc.) that you wouldn't want the younger kids to stumble across.
Something that I've noticed amongst people commenting on these subjects on the internet is that they frequently fall into one of two camps:
To address (1) first - I am usually the last person to promote censorship, but I do believe that schools have a responsibility to protect kids from the content on the internet. Most parents seem to agree. If you, as a parent, disagree with this then you are free to let your child have free reign on the internet from home; just don't expect this to happen on school equipment. As someone involved in writing filtering software, I certainly don't see myself as "evil" - I don't set policies on what gets filtered, I simply provide the tools to allow those in charge to do what they believe is the responsible thing. Note that I am only saying that censorship
It's not dubiously legal.
Yes, it is. If someone's bank account gets compromised because you were performing a MITM attack on their SSL session then you can bet there will be some quite serious questions levelled at you.
There are techniques for doing man-in-the-middle attacks against the SSL session which allows for inspection of SSL traffic. It's a premium feature though and I imagine schools don't want to pay for too much extra.
Doing MITM attacks on SSL sessions where you control the browser is trivial - you just import a new trusted root cert into the browser and have a proxy decrypt the SSL session and re-encrypt it using a certificate signed by the newly trusted cert.
There may also be legal issues with it, but I don't know about those.
I run a company producing filtering software for schools and we absolutely refuse to do these sorts of MITM attacks because we believe that there are serious legal issues. If someone's bank account, credit card, etc. gets compromised because a school is running MITM attacks on SSL sessions then the school, and possibly the producer of the filtering software, are probably going to be quite liable. The techies at our customers seem to agree with our assessment and are happy to have an all-or-nothing approach to SSL (i.e. they can block or allow by domain name, but that's as far as the filtering goes).
So far we haven't had to explain our position to the management types who might not properly understand the implications of attacking SSL sessions; however I'm sure that it will come up at some point since there are a number of competitors advertising that they can filter content being transferred over SSL.
On the Google front, it's certainly good that they are addressing the problem, but it seems to me that it is too late and too slow - this stuff should have been considered *before* the roll-out of SSL search (it was blindingly obvious to everyone in the content filtering industry how big a problem this was going to be as soon as Google announced it); and the amount of time it is taking for them to sort it out once the problem was discovered is far too long. Since this has effectively prevented a lot of schools from accessing the Google Apps for Education for several weeks, I would have thought the best solution would have been to temporarilly disable search over SSL again until all the problems had been resolved. Also, it has always struck me that bundling all the separate services under a single domain name is crazy - it's just asking for the rollout of one new service to badly impact an existing service.
No. Kids don't have instinctive responses to particular web pages
If you think this then you haven't dealt with many teenage kids.
adults who think that implied disgust and taking away of information are correct ways of providing education.
Who said anything about providing education?
I'm pretty anti-censorship and think that people should have access to whatever information they like. *However* I'm not crazy enough to believe that the very young are capable of dealing with all that information - they should only get access to some of it when they have matured to the point of being able to deal with it.
There are 3 things that kids need protecting against:
1. accidentally stumbling across content. Do you really want primary school kids accidentally stumbling across the likes of 2g1c? Plenty of adults find it quite traumatising, let alone kids who haven't been prepared through life experience.
2. intentionally finding content. Do you want kids to know how to set up their own drugs lab before they have the life experience to understand the consequences of drug use? Also, things like electronic bullying are real problems causing real harm.
3. distracting content. When kids are in lessons, they frequently do need access to the internet. But giving them access to the likes of facebook is really distracting (even employers have a problem with this, let alone schools!). There is a certain amount of policing that can be done by the teachers, but filtering systems help a lot.
Once they have the life experience to deal with this stuff then by all means, let them access it. If you, as a parent, disagree with this sort of censorship then you are well within your rights to allow your kids to access this content in their own time from home, but they certainly shouldn't be accessing it in school where they can inflict it on other kids, whose parents almost certainly disagree with you.
It's an enhancement that isn't a disadvantage for the user, so we should welcome it.
And if it also prevents man in the middle hacking of web pages it's a good thing.
Actually, this is going to be a big problem for me. I write software to protect school kids from getting to (accidentally or intentionally) dodgy content - this is anything from porn, to sites promoting violence/drugs/etc. Schools usually restrict HTTPS access to a few specific sites since HTTPS is basically unfilterable.
The problem here is that Google has grouped everything they do under a single domain. There is now no way I can allow HTTPS access to the various google apps (which is sensible since things like login details really should be sent encrypted) whilst forcing the web searches to be transmitted (and therefore filtered) in the clear.
He's talking about EU jurisdictions. And it is the law here, rightly or wrongly.
Umm, no it isn't. Here in the UK (which is an "EU jurisdiction") you can most certainly take photos of pretty much anything in a public place. There are laws regarding what you can _publish_ without people consenting, but you're free to take photos for personal use.
This is why there has been such an uproar about the police confiscating cameras, etc. when people take photos of them, because (no matter what the police claim when they confiscate the photos) it is completely legal for people to do so.
You can perfectly legally watch me go down the street, but in most jurisdictions you better have a damned good reason if you're filming me.
Which jurisdictions are these? In most jurisdictions, you're well within your rights to film pretty much anything happening in a public place. You might not be able to _publish_ that film without consent, but that is different.
Average Joe user may have absolutely no clue his WAP is broadcasting in the clear, nor should he be required to have that technical talent
Why? Why should people expect complex technology to do what they want without having any understanding about how to make it do that?
anymore than we should all be expected to be car mechanics
Of course we don't all need to be car mechanics. However, cars are not designed to work perfectly for their whole lives without a mechanic doing some work either. Most people understand that they need to get their car serviced - if they can do this themselves then fine, but those that can't can take it to a professional to be serviced. Why is wifi so different? If you can set it up yourself then fine, otherwise damned well pay a professional to do it for you.
Complaining that your wifi is insecure (because you didn't know how to set it up) is like complaining that your car broke because you didn't understand how to service it - in both cases, if you didn't understand how to do it you should damned well have paid someone who did.
Oh. You implied that your company does its own hiring. Since you have corrected me, that means that you don't do your own hiring, so your views are irrelevant.
We do, but that is a tiny part of the company's business. And no, we don't have an HR department.
Funny, when I send stuff, I actually ask them
Really? That's at odds with what you already said - you previously said that you didn't care if the media you sent could only be used on Windows, and you based this on the explicit assumption that the people you sent it to would be using Windows rather than asking them first.
rather than dictating what they *should* be using, as you are.
No, really I'm not. If you think I am then you clearly need to go educate yourself what the term "platform agnostic" means.
You stated that you would happily send content that could only be used by Windows machines because you made the assumption that the recipient would always be using Windows. This means you are dictating to people what you expect them to use to read content that you sent.
On the other hand, I said that this assumption is not valid and that it would be more sensible to use a platform agnostic format. I did not state or dictate what OS the recipient would be using and I did not state or dictate what OS you would be using. If you are using a platform agnostic format then these things are irrelevant.
There's nothing I hate more than when someone sends me a GIS file in what they assume is the most interoperable, rather than just asking.
Asking is fine, but you didn't say that - instead, you said that you expected the recipient to always use Windows.
Also, remember we're talking about a CV here, not a GIS file. There are different criteria at work here - if you are sending someone something informational, such as a CV then sending it in a read only presentation format is fine (in fact, a good idea - I sure as hell don't want someone editing my CV, intentionally or otherwise). If you're sending someone something that you expect them to need to edit then sending it in an uneditable format would be pretty silly.
You dictate what they should be using by unilaterally deciding what will work on pretty much any system
I'm not making any such decision. The decision is made by what software is available for each platform. Going back to the example given in the original post, ISO9660 format can be read by practically every system with a CDROM drive, UDF less so and the unspecified Windows-XP-only format originally proposed would clearly be worse. None of these are my decisions - this is simply a case of looking at what the most widely supported format is. Clearly ISO9660 is the most sensible format - it does not exclude anyone who could have read one of the other formats and it includes extra people who couldn't. The only reasons for distributing your CV in an unspecified windows-only format instead of ISO9660 are lazyness, cluelessness or an intentional effort to reduce the number of people who can read the content - all three of these reasons seem like pretty silly ones if you're applying for jobs.
Wait, you want people to open it, but you aren't assuming that the vast majority of computers have Windows installed on them?
No. I would want people to open it and I don't care what OS they are using because I would be using a platform agnostic format. Platform agnostic means that it doesn't matter what OS they are using. What the majority of computers are running is irrelevant.
I declare they *are* using Windows.
And the existence of companies that don't use Windows proves you wrong.
It's like the banks that build their sites for Windows only. They lose so few customers over it (if any) that they are still making plenty of money.
Sure, but what do they gain fro
This has nothing to do with being "purposefully obtuse" and everything to do with picking the best system for the job at hand.
If the "job at hand" is to receive random submissions by the general public, then it either needs to be interoperable with Windows, or it is not the best system for the job at hand.
But that isn't what my company does...
As I said, deliberately obtuse.
There is nothing "obtuse" about it. Yes, it is a deliberate decision, but it was made for solid reasons, not because we wanted to be obtuse.
You decide what everyone else should be using
No. I already said - people should be using the right tool for the job they are doing. If Windows is the best thing for you then use Windows, if Linux is the best thing for me I'll use Linux. Someone else might be using OS X, BSD, Solaris, whatever because *it is the best thing for the job they are doing*.
You are the one deciding that everyone must use Windows and refusing to interact with anyone who doesn't. When I send media to people, I send it in a format that will work on pretty much any system instead of trying to dictate to them what they should be using.
knowing it's not what they are using
I don't pretend to know what arbitrary people are using. Assuming they are using the same system as myself would be pretty arrogant, so I try to do things in a platform agnostic way so that it doesn't matter. Frankly, I don't *care* what system someone is using - the only time it becomes important is when dealing with an arrogant individual who insists on dictating that everyone must work the same way.
then hold it against them if they aren't guessing that you are one of the tiny minority not using Windows.
Your need to guess what OS someone is using demonstrates a flaw on your part.
If you want something (e.g. a job), making the people who can give you that thing go unnecessarily out of their way is a pretty silly idea - it isn't as if doing things in a platform agnostic way is hard, it just requires a bit of common sense.
I guess I am holding a lack of common sense against people - I'm not really interested in employing someone who doesn't have the mental skills to figure this stuff out. Dictating to a potential employer what software they should be using doesn't leave a good impression, in much the same way as submitting a CV scrawled in purple crayon doesn't.
You sound like a pompous ass.
Not really. I'm interested in employing people who have the mental ability to do the job. Your CV is part of the process of discovering if a potential employee has got what it takes. A fixed "I use software X so everyone else must use software X" or "you should use software X because everyone else does (rather than it being a good candidate for the job at hand" attitude is a negative strike against you because it demonstrates that your attitude may well not be suited to the job you are applying for.
This is nothing to do with "being pompous" and everything to do with wanting the best employees.
"Would you like to explain to me what benefit my company would get from [running windows]?" as a challenge when you don't even tell me what you do?
I write software to run on Linux servers, and do IPv4 and IPv6 network design, security and problem solving consultancy. Windows is not really useful for any of these things - the tools for these jobs happen to be much better under Unix type systems. Switching to Windows would simply get me a more expensive system with inferior tools.
That you think your personal experience is somehow representative (despite the fact it's directly contradictory to the statistics available) makes you a pompous ass. And that you think I'd be upset if I presented my resume in a manner that would improve my ch
the point is that you said you _didn't care_ whether non-windows systems could read it
I don't. You are posting about your company in the UK (I'm guessing) so it's illegal for me to work there.
The country involved seems pretty irrelevant - this is an example of just one company, I'm sure there are plenty of similar companies in the US.
Also, those in the US, unless staffed by pompous asses that no one would want to work for anyway, realize that Windows is the de facto standard.
It may be a defacto standard, but it is expensive and offers nothing useful that my company can't get elsewhere (for less money and less hassle). Supporting Windows machines increases the administration costs - would you like to explain to me what benefit my company would get from doing so (and if the answer is purely that we gain the ability to read the CVs from people who don't have a lot of common sense then I'd suggest that we're not missing out on much)?
Anyone who doesn't interoperate with Windows does so purposefully and by their own choosing.
Well yes, but the reasoning behind this is often sound.
If some company chooses to go out of their way to be purposefully obtuse
This has nothing to do with being "purposefully obtuse" and everything to do with picking the best system for the job at hand. I would find it concerning if a company wasted resources using a system that was more expensive than an alternative system which was as or more suitable.
The company I run has no use for Windows systems - pretty much everything we do can be done as well or better on Linux systems for a much lower cost. This means that we have more money to invest in things that _actually_ matter and thus the whole company is better off. I would venture that the company is also better off avoiding employing people with an extremely closed "must run Windows because everyone else does" mindset, so I don't have a lot of problem with ignoring CVs from people such as yourself.
It should be noted that I don't have anything specifically against Windows or any other system - if it is the best tool for the job then by all means that is what should be used; it is just that in my business I have usually found that there are better and cheaper alternatives, which are more suitable for the job in hand, if you just look past popularity..
Then you will be able to use Open Office to open it, so I am unclear why you are speaking as if Microsoft Doc format is some enigma.
Who said anything about Doc format? The post you were replying to was asking if XP wrote CDs in ISO9660 format or "some weird packet writing format". You replied saying that you didn't care because you could guarantee that it would be opened on a Windows machine.
I am simply pointing out that there is no such guarantee - some companies (such as mine) are Linux-only shops, others are Apple-only shops. So you _should_ care whether or not you are supplying your CV in a format that can be universally read.
(for the record, AFAIK XP uses UDF packet writing to burn CDs, which is supported by Linux, but that isn't the point - the point is that you said you _didn't care_ whether non-windows systems could read it).
Does the copy to CD feature in XP create an ISO-9660 compatible CD file system, or even Joliet? I thought it was some weird packet writing format.
We are talking about resumes. I don't know and don't care because the person being handed that will be putting it in a Microsoft-based computer anyway.
Really? If you submit your CV to my company I can guarantee you that it won't be read on a MS based computer because my company doesn't _have_ any MS based computers. We are exclusively Linux based and if your CV can't be read on a stock Fedora workstation it is liable to be filed in the bin. (Also, as a side note, if you submit your CV in a non-portable format we are liable to label you a bit of an idiot, even if we can read it, so it doesn't help your employment prospects too much).
I'm not bashing PDF, but just pointing out that PDF writers are rare. Windows doesn't have default printer drivers that write to PDF, Word doesn't have a save-as-PDF option that I can find.
Included for free with Mac, so they don't have to worry about Word compatibility, and there are tons of free print-to-PDF solutions out there.
OpenOffice has a PDF exporter (although oddly it gives inferior results than printing to a postscript file and running pstopdf on the result).
Old cats DO work with today's lead free petrol.
I'm pretty sure that cats aren't big fans of petrol, leaded or not.
It should be illegal?
I'd rather the government not control business that much.
All I can say is it works pretty well here in the UK.
If you want a subsidised phone then they are available, if you want to just get a SIM on whatever plan you like then they are available too.
I bought my HTC Dream outright for £140 and put a PAYG SIM in it. Costs me about £5 every 2 or 3 months. Doing the maths, that gives me a TCO of around £170-190 over the first 18 months - a much better deal than a subsidised phone because I get to choose a tariff that fits my usage instead of what the telco wants to sell me.
For instance, what happens to every customer (like my parents for example) that keep their phones longer than 2 years. Would their plans suddenly have to come down in price once they were no longer subdizing the cost of a phone?
This is exactly why the market needs to change - people replace their perfectly good phone every year or two because the telco gives them a "free" upgrade. Most people don't need to replace their phone and would save money if the telco offered them a reduction in the contract price in exchange for not upgrading, but they aren't given this option. And that's before you consider the horrendous environmental impact of everyone throwing out their phones for no good reason.
You may or may not be able to actually stop the phone from trying to access mobile data - there isn't an option in the settings to disable it.
Edit the APN settings and change them to something invalid. No, I don't know why there isn't a button to turn off data entirely, but this method is trivial and doesn't require any rooting.
If you find something, try to turn it in like the iPhone finder did by calling Apple, and Apple thinks it's a hoax and says no, it seems to me that it's his to treat as his own.
Then it seems to you wrong. He was legally required to hand it to the police. Instead he sold it for much wonga.
And if you think a first line support dweeb at *any* reasonably big company is going to know about a lost prototype, you're sorely mistaken; secrecy or no.
As much as I like to see Apple getting their arse handed to them, there's no excuse for breaking the law.