How many people run Norton Corp Edition? It is termendiously different that the home edition. I see all this banter about how horriable it is, but if you run the Corp edition, it makes things run smoothly, and in fact, it is just as fast and responsive as other anti-virus programs. The home version, however, is a completely different story. The home edition, is a piece. The Corp Edition is not, and in my opinion is quite usable, works well, is fast and does not degrade performance. Doing the comparision that one poster suggested, running Norton Corp in a VMware VM, verses a non-Norton VM, I noticed no noticable difference.
However, with that sad, the site is pretty sad. That is all I have to say. That guy has a one way ticket to hell. He is out there pan handeling saying he is homeless, and at the same time advertising bubble baths, and has a website trying to get woman?
Yeah, but the way that I look at it, the operating system should not be the most resource intensive piece of software installed on my system. The operating system is there to make sure that things run smoothly, and make sure things behave. Did MS solve the security problems that have been plaguing them for years? Did they make any advancement in the way of spyware/malware? What about performance? From the sounds of it, it doesn't look like it. Just by the hardware requirements, it is one hell of a resource hog.
Microsoft isn't releasing a new operating system, per se, but a new desktop manager with Vista. That is what this eye candy discussion is all about. And what about my programs that actually require some sort of power? Does that mean that they are going to be competing with resources of the operating system just to run? Sorry, but that is a big turn off?
Here is my beef with Vista -- I don't see any advantage of security, or real performance features other than Aero, and for that matter my laptop may not support Aero Glass anyway. They have stripped out WinFS, which would have been the major reason for upgrading. So from my perspective they dumped all there money and development into a desktop enviroment, and really haven't made much advancement in terms of security.
I guess the real test will be if businesses buy the vista sales pitch. As an IT person, I wouldn't want to deal it.
My thoughts exactly. Considering that quality won't initially be there until after new releases start to come out, why on earth would anyone want to run out and adopt Blu-Ray? I love a high-quality show, but honestly, I am thinking that I am going to wait and see who wins the battle. If I have to buy a new TV, a new DVD player, and then pay out the nose for DVD's, why would I want to adopt Blu-Ray early especially when it is going to battle it out with HD-DVD?
The other thing I am wondering about is what will this do to the rental market? My wife and I don't like to buy too many movies unless we really like the movie. We rent about half the movies that we watch and buy the other half. But what will this do to rental prices? Is Blockbuster, Hollywood Video or the local video depot going to double their prices due to HD-DVD/Blue-Ray prices?
I hate to say it, but if Sony, et al, are hoping for consumer adoption, price will be a huge determining factor. Sure quality is important. Entertainment is a nice part of life. But frankly when it comes to putting gas in the car or buying a DVD, I am going to gas in the car. Maybe I am not in the target demographic, but I am thinking that alot of people won't pony up the money when they look at how much the DVD's run. Especially when the older titles that they like aren't going to offer any benefit to them, but they are going to cost them more money.
Agreed. Let the Slashdot crowd ignore whatever good may come from BYU or the Mormon crowd (granted that I am Mormon) and have people immediately start to make comments that are disparaging(sp?) just because a Mormon school had a role in making the discovery. If it was a Jewish school people would be screaming, and the moderators would be rutheless, but whenever any Mormon topic is mentioned, the crowd somehow leaches onto the fact and the next thing that happens is that people make comments bashing the faith. Forget the merrits of the topic at hand, whether good or bad, but it immediately boils down to prejudgices of faith. But then again, Slashdot is so anti-faith, that people merely mentioning that you believe in God is going to get to you attacked.
With that said, I will most likely be MODDED down as FLAMEBAIT. Which is interesting, because it will just further illistrate the anti-faith stance. But then again it is ok to be anti-Mormon, anti-Muslim, anti-Jehovah's Witness, etc., as long as your not anti- .
So the point to all the closed minded Slashdotters out there that pretend to think of themselves of being open-minded: Just because something of worth, or even something that is undesirable (i.e. SCO) comes from people of faith, it is unfair and bigotted to judge the entire faith based on the merrits of that ONE thing. And it is entirely unfair and entirely inappropriately to discount something of great potential worth, especially in this case because it came from people of faith.
Better yet, someone with some money should establish a buisness model around the idea of VPN filetrading using SSL connection.
Then all traffic, including bittorrent, internet browsing, mail, etc, is aggrigated to one single point. Then it will look like a VPN connection, and not like file-trading. Since the data will be aggrigate, it won't be alot of small encypted connections, but one single connection. Further, since all internet traffic will be tunnelled over the connection, it will be larger, and should be fairly consistant. Additionally, if a lot of torrent users use the service, then the VPN ISP could cache torrents with out affecting download speeds. Using SSL or even ISpec (which would be a lot harder) the VPN ISP could sell the service as being reliable, fast, and secure, while allowing for unlimited use of all protocolls. You could get everyone from those using Wi-Fi, to security freaks, to bittorent, file-traders, etc. For added fun, the VPN-ISP could put an annoymizer on the end point, stripping of identifying information.
RIAA might have a hayday, but if they only cache legitmate torrents, like Linux distros, then they might be able to get away with it, since they are offering legitimate bittorrents. And ISP might not block it because it isn't trashing their routers and creating a headache for them.
President Putin also mentioned that while the Russain Federation has developed the technology, Russsia does not have the funding to actually launch the missle. "With all our rotting submarines, and degrading nuclear facilities, it would just be too costly to construct and maintain one of these new-fangled 'zig-zag' missle. Really, the purpose of this press release is to inspire, uh, what is the term, ah, yes, FUD."
I am of your opinion. It should be Microsoft's responsability to license the patient and make it good. When I bought the license to use their product, I was licensing it in good faith. Frankly, I would love to return the product and get my money back claiming they they have violated their licensing agreement by reducing functionality. In fact, I wonder if Microsoft will allow me to return the product based on the claim that I can no longer use the product legally that I purchased. If Microsoft does not provide a legal way to provide that same functionality, with the same performance, then they are changing the terms of the licensing agreement in an illegal way. I gave them money in return for the rights to use their product. Now because they broke the law, they are saying I can't use that product. So another question I have is that if the patent is stolen, and illegally used, then technically, is the licensing agreement void? IANAL, but my understanding is any agreement reached where one of the terms is illegal makes the entire agreement null and void. So, in my opinion, it should be Microsoft's duty and obligiation to provide the functionality legally. I think I will be calling Microsoft today...
I should have stated that I am using Norton Corp. Edition -- which is far different than the version that ships for the home user. I WON'T even use the home version of Norton.
Actually, after playing with the OneCare beta, I went right back to Norton. Quickly. It doesn't hold a candle in terms of what it does. Sure OneCare does download patches, defrags your hard drive, and all that, but slows your computer down something fierce. Sure it might do all that, but at what cost, not being able to use your computer? If Norton could offer something like OneCare, but without the performanc hit, then Norton could really make some cash.
I seriously doubt any laywer with half a brain cell is going to qoute the merits of a kiddie porn case. Kiddie porn is considered is considered a particularly vial and disgusting business. If RIAA and the MPAA are going to start quoting cases that involve kiddie porn, they are going to have a public relations nightmare. Alot of people, even those that have problems with copy music and movies illegally are going have real problems with equating copying music to having sex with children or being involved in the whole kiddie porn business. Forget the legal merrits of the argument, the mere fact that they were brought in a kiddie porn case would be enough to make a smart laywer use it. If I was laywering and defending a client, I would not let that issue die. I would force the RIAA/MPAA to argue the legal theory all over again, and any references to the kiddie porn case would envoke a tirade about how piracy is not the moral equivalent to raping a child.
I know that the Slashdot crowd has mixed feelings about VMware, but honestly, I am a huge fan of it. VMware is what allowed me to switch from Windows to Linux, while keeping the programs that I need for school, and keep my wife happy. Further, I can run a different Windows for whatever the different need may be. For example, I have one Windows for personal use, work, school, security/spyware/malware research, Windows Server 2003, Windows 98, an Oracle enviroment, FreeBSD, and several different Linux bases installed. Before I made the leap, I tried VMware in Windows, and decided that it was a viable alternative and then made the conversion to Linux. The great thing about running Windows under Linux is that I have not had any spyware problems since converting, nor virus problems -- probably because I surf the internet and do email under Linux as opposed to Windows. The downside to this approach is that it 1) Expensive, VMware cost $189 for Linux, but they do give you a 30-day license; 2.) You have to have a lot of memory in order to get the full benefit. 3.) You still need a license for Windows. However, I get better performance for my Windows installations under Linux than I did with a native Windows installation. And then you can do snapshots and other features. Even if you manage to hose your Linux installation, short of deleting your virtual machine files, your virtual machines are safe.
Anyhow, the point of the post, is that if you seriously would like to be able to migrate away from Windows, and need to be able to maintain compatablilty, then look at VMware. Unlike some of the other virtualization solutions, VMware is extremely professional, polished, and does a slick job. I am the president of a Linux and Unix User group and we distribute VMware disk images for use in VMPlayer (which is free) to help people get farmiliar with Linux. The quaility of VMware is such that after using a beta release for two months I couldn't help but buy it after the beta expired -- their beta was so professional, I was really impressed.
Does that mean that RIAA's website is violating copyright since it "shares" copyrighted material? Afterall, I seriously doubt RIAA is going to be using the Creative Commons License on their material, but that is a copyright afterall. Then again, copyright law after 1979 makes it so anything that is created has an assumed copyright anyway. What are these laywers thinking? I wonder if these laywers are going to work for RIAA ever again. If I was a laywer working against RIAA I would argue that RIAA can't argue that point -- it is ludicris, and doesn't make sense. It would make crimials out of every web master in the United States.
The log question may be legitimate. With all the questions about trusted computing, etc., from the business perspective, what about trusted components.
As I am sitting here, I have come up a scheme that might work. 1) Each USB device has a unique key. 2.) Each key has to be registered at a central USB key server. 3.) When a USB device is plugged into a computer, the client machine queries the server to seek for authorization for the USB device to work, if the device is not authorized. 4.) Denied devices trigger security. The scheme would work in an environment where data theft is a concern since most users would not have administrative privelages anyway. Further-more devices like mice could care a unique key where they wouldn't have to be authorized unless they had memory on them.
Very true. When I was running Windows, I was constaintly having problems with infections. But then again, my laptop was being connected to unsecured and very untrusted networks. Between my schools wifi connection (which was the cleanest), my work's Windows 95/98 network, and then my apartment complex's network, I was constaintly getting slammed with the latest and greatest in virus and spyware. My school bought a site license that allowed them to give Norton Corp. edition to every student, and I had it set to update automatically everyday. But it usually wasn't a virus, but the spyware that managed to get in. And I was running Spybot and Microsoft's Anti-spyware. When I switched over to SuSE Linux 10.0, I can say that the problems stopped. But I will say that my problems with spyware and viruses were caused not because of my computing habits (I applied all the latest patches, used up-to-date spyware/malware/virus programs, refused to use IE, etc), but because my computer was used in hostile enviroment. My apartment complex was so bad that you were lucky to get out on the network to get your email, and they had six 4-mb cable connections load balanced for us guys.
I think what may be being percieved as racism may not be -- it may be communication preferences. For example, I am not racist. I don't hate anyone for their race. However, I have a strong preference for speaking to someone that can communicate effectively in English. And I think that is where the backlash towards outsourcing came from: companies attempting to save money resulted in frustrated customers, when the customers were perfectly happy before with the service they were recieving. Anyone that has spent time on a tech-support hotline or has tried to get something RMA'ed has probably experienced the "C as in Cali-fornia, F as in Flori-e-duh" sad attempt at American English with the Far East accesents. I think that any field is going to have a degree of rasicm. That is bound to happen. But in IT, with the visability, and the required communication skills, some employers may prefer the "white caucasion male" because at least the 90-year old grandma attempting to use AOL can at least understand him than the "female Indonessian Muslim." Computers frustrate a lot of users, and the non-geek crowd get especially frustrated with them. Why frustrate the users more by having communicate with someone that can't communicate effectively back and still have a non-working computer. Think about it. When it starts to affect the bottom line of a company, and it is not rooted towards race but towards skill, then it may not be racism at all. Now with that said, I have a friend that is a Pakastiani that you wouldn't know is one, because his communication skills are that of a native American. He does a great job in IT and is well liked.
I agree that he deserves what he got. Although the company should have terminated his access accounts _before_ firing him to save themselves. But that doesn't matter for arguments sake. The point is that if he was a hacker, all IT people would be screaming for him to be executed. Just because he had easy access doesn't mitigate that he committed computer tresspass. At the point of his firing, he was not authorized to even touch the computer. So I think that three months was pretty easy for him.
Very true. Even if you are one of the cynics and are stating that he is doing this to get younger votes, he probably is starting to really tick off Sony BMG. Afterall, he filed a class action lawsuit over the Sony Rootkit fiasco, and now he is looking into price fixing. Makes you wonder why he is out to get them, but it sure is nice to see a politician finally going after these guys. And the fact Sony BMG is squarely in his sights is really nice. If I was an exec over at Sony I would start looking at finding out when his term is up, and start looking at funding a potential person to run against him -- get him out of office, or get someone in Albany to cut his budget or something so that he couldn't pursue it. But I am all for it. I am really glad to see that states AG's are starting to treat RIAA like the scum they are.
Not to mention by offering a "cripple-ware" who are learning about databases a chance to learn them with out having to fork out some serious cash. Although, you can download Oracle 10g Enterprise Edition for free for development purpouses for free as long as you don't deploy it for production. But with the crippleware, like Express or "Lite" versions, then education circles can effectively teach database design to students without having to use the full-blown thing, which can be like installing a BSD system when you don't have a clue what you're doing. My first exposure to databases was using Oracle, and it was like learning how to use a gun by being introduced to a M1-A1, when I would really like have been introduced to a rifle first -- getting the idea of how to shoot a gun and the basics of shooting would have been a lot easier than learning about how to manuerviuer and performance tune a massive beast. Now, one I am taking a class next semester that is based off of Oracle 10g Express Edition, and now I want to use the tank. Needless to say, I will be having fun with my laptop that has been upgraded to handle Oracle 10g release 2 (2gig of RAM, 7200 rpm 100 gb hard drive, SuSE Enterprise Linux; I only wish I had a laptop that could handle four gig of it)
Worst idea? From a standards standpoint, it is a great idea. Opera is perhaps the most standards compliant browser out there. So developers would stop complaining that IE isn't standards compliant.Imagine, all the webmill people would shut up. Further, they could beef up Opera, and give it some access to those belove Microsoft API's, give it the packaging of Microsoft and well, now the browser wars have been won, all over again, before most of mainstream people even knew that that there was an arms built up. Instead of having to reinvent the Internet Explorer, they have effectively bought a browser, repackaged it, and shut up all the people that hate it. Think about it. I don't use Opera, but I don't have anything against it. Do you? A lot of people have problems with IE because of the Spyware and Security problems. Unless Opera is really buggy, it could provide a really nice code base for them to pound Mozilla. And I like Mozilla. And I am writing this from my Linux box.
I was thinking about taking an old Linux box, Apache, Firefox, mySQL and then some touch screen for a Christmas present for my wife. She is a fantastic cook, and I was thinking about taking her recipes and putting them onto the computer, with the touch screen in the kitchen. That'll information will make the project much, much easier. Thanks.
How about performance issues? I found that running my own DNS server actually increased my internet speeds. The computer was spending less time trying to find the websites and was actually getting to them. Then again, the internet providers in South Eastern Idaho are pretty brain dead. So it was no suprise. At the time that I put up the DNS server, I was living with room mates, and they actually connected to the server, and within about a month I had an entire building connecting to my FreeBSD 4.6 box. The best part was that they were totally understanding whenever I had to do an upgrade or took it down to work on a project or tinker. The way I had them setup was me as the primary DNS and then then I had the secondary as public DNS server. Sure, it wasn't as fast (the secondary DNS), and ever time I did something with my computer, they would ask, but they were just glad to be able to get the performance increase of being able to use my DNS server. My speculation about the reason why the DNS server was slow is because of the filters on gateway that the apartment complex was using. My guess is that the gateway was using some sort of logging. They also used MAC filtering and the like to be real pricks. Needless to say when I moved out, I was real pleased to have normal internet again. I wasn't the nicest of netizens, since I connected my DNS to the root servers, instead of my ISP, but oh well.
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How many people run Norton Corp Edition? It is termendiously different that the home edition. I see all this banter about how horriable it is, but if you run the Corp edition, it makes things run smoothly, and in fact, it is just as fast and responsive as other anti-virus programs. The home version, however, is a completely different story. The home edition, is a piece. The Corp Edition is not, and in my opinion is quite usable, works well, is fast and does not degrade performance. Doing the comparision that one poster suggested, running Norton Corp in a VMware VM, verses a non-Norton VM, I noticed no noticable difference.
Mod parent up! That is really funny.
However, with that sad, the site is pretty sad. That is all I have to say. That guy has a one way ticket to hell. He is out there pan handeling saying he is homeless, and at the same time advertising bubble baths, and has a website trying to get woman?
Yeah, but the way that I look at it, the operating system should not be the most resource intensive piece of software installed on my system. The operating system is there to make sure that things run smoothly, and make sure things behave. Did MS solve the security problems that have been plaguing them for years? Did they make any advancement in the way of spyware/malware? What about performance? From the sounds of it, it doesn't look like it. Just by the hardware requirements, it is one hell of a resource hog.
Microsoft isn't releasing a new operating system, per se, but a new desktop manager with Vista. That is what this eye candy discussion is all about. And what about my programs that actually require some sort of power? Does that mean that they are going to be competing with resources of the operating system just to run? Sorry, but that is a big turn off?
Here is my beef with Vista -- I don't see any advantage of security, or real performance features other than Aero, and for that matter my laptop may not support Aero Glass anyway. They have stripped out WinFS, which would have been the major reason for upgrading. So from my perspective they dumped all there money and development into a desktop enviroment, and really haven't made much advancement in terms of security.
I guess the real test will be if businesses buy the vista sales pitch. As an IT person, I wouldn't want to deal it.
Good point. I don't know if I want to end up on some terrorist watch list for encyrpting that the Linux User Group meeting will be at 6 on Tuesdays.
My thoughts exactly. Considering that quality won't initially be there until after new releases start to come out, why on earth would anyone want to run out and adopt Blu-Ray? I love a high-quality show, but honestly, I am thinking that I am going to wait and see who wins the battle. If I have to buy a new TV, a new DVD player, and then pay out the nose for DVD's, why would I want to adopt Blu-Ray early especially when it is going to battle it out with HD-DVD?
The other thing I am wondering about is what will this do to the rental market? My wife and I don't like to buy too many movies unless we really like the movie. We rent about half the movies that we watch and buy the other half. But what will this do to rental prices? Is Blockbuster, Hollywood Video or the local video depot going to double their prices due to HD-DVD/Blue-Ray prices?
I hate to say it, but if Sony, et al, are hoping for consumer adoption, price will be a huge determining factor. Sure quality is important. Entertainment is a nice part of life. But frankly when it comes to putting gas in the car or buying a DVD, I am going to gas in the car. Maybe I am not in the target demographic, but I am thinking that alot of people won't pony up the money when they look at how much the DVD's run. Especially when the older titles that they like aren't going to offer any benefit to them, but they are going to cost them more money.
Agreed. Let the Slashdot crowd ignore whatever good may come from BYU or the Mormon crowd (granted that I am Mormon) and have people immediately start to make comments that are disparaging(sp?) just because a Mormon school had a role in making the discovery. If it was a Jewish school people would be screaming, and the moderators would be rutheless, but whenever any Mormon topic is mentioned, the crowd somehow leaches onto the fact and the next thing that happens is that people make comments bashing the faith. Forget the merrits of the topic at hand, whether good or bad, but it immediately boils down to prejudgices of faith. But then again, Slashdot is so anti-faith, that people merely mentioning that you believe in God is going to get to you attacked.
With that said, I will most likely be MODDED down as FLAMEBAIT. Which is interesting, because it will just further illistrate the anti-faith stance. But then again it is ok to be anti-Mormon, anti-Muslim, anti-Jehovah's Witness, etc., as long as your not anti- .
So the point to all the closed minded Slashdotters out there that pretend to think of themselves of being open-minded: Just because something of worth, or even something that is undesirable (i.e. SCO) comes from people of faith, it is unfair and bigotted to judge the entire faith based on the merrits of that ONE thing. And it is entirely unfair and entirely inappropriately to discount something of great potential worth, especially in this case because it came from people of faith.
Well just see how long this post last...
Better yet, someone with some money should establish a buisness model around the idea of VPN filetrading using SSL connection.
Then all traffic, including bittorrent, internet browsing, mail, etc, is aggrigated to one single point. Then it will look like a VPN connection, and not like file-trading. Since the data will be aggrigate, it won't be alot of small encypted connections, but one single connection. Further, since all internet traffic will be tunnelled over the connection, it will be larger, and should be fairly consistant. Additionally, if a lot of torrent users use the service, then the VPN ISP could cache torrents with out affecting download speeds. Using SSL or even ISpec (which would be a lot harder) the VPN ISP could sell the service as being reliable, fast, and secure, while allowing for unlimited use of all protocolls. You could get everyone from those using Wi-Fi, to security freaks, to bittorent, file-traders, etc. For added fun, the VPN-ISP could put an annoymizer on the end point, stripping of identifying information.
RIAA might have a hayday, but if they only cache legitmate torrents, like Linux distros, then they might be able to get away with it, since they are offering legitimate bittorrents. And ISP might not block it because it isn't trashing their routers and creating a headache for them.
No, it's more like David, Goliath's brother, and an amy of pitbull laywers vrs Goliath.
Afterall, with M$, Amazon, Google, all pulling for net neutrality? I would hope it would would stand out a little better.
President Putin also mentioned that while the Russain Federation has developed the technology, Russsia does not have the funding to actually launch the missle. "With all our rotting submarines, and degrading nuclear facilities, it would just be too costly to construct and maintain one of these new-fangled 'zig-zag' missle. Really, the purpose of this press release is to inspire, uh, what is the term, ah, yes, FUD."
I am of your opinion. It should be Microsoft's responsability to license the patient and make it good. When I bought the license to use their product, I was licensing it in good faith. Frankly, I would love to return the product and get my money back claiming they they have violated their licensing agreement by reducing functionality. In fact, I wonder if Microsoft will allow me to return the product based on the claim that I can no longer use the product legally that I purchased. If Microsoft does not provide a legal way to provide that same functionality, with the same performance, then they are changing the terms of the licensing agreement in an illegal way. I gave them money in return for the rights to use their product. Now because they broke the law, they are saying I can't use that product. So another question I have is that if the patent is stolen, and illegally used, then technically, is the licensing agreement void? IANAL, but my understanding is any agreement reached where one of the terms is illegal makes the entire agreement null and void. So, in my opinion, it should be Microsoft's duty and obligiation to provide the functionality legally. I think I will be calling Microsoft today...
I love the last line -- if you just want bragging rights -- these days that'll last 3 days.
I should have stated that I am using Norton Corp. Edition -- which is far different than the version that ships for the home user. I WON'T even use the home version of Norton.
Actually, after playing with the OneCare beta, I went right back to Norton. Quickly. It doesn't hold a candle in terms of what it does. Sure OneCare does download patches, defrags your hard drive, and all that, but slows your computer down something fierce. Sure it might do all that, but at what cost, not being able to use your computer? If Norton could offer something like OneCare, but without the performanc hit, then Norton could really make some cash.
I seriously doubt any laywer with half a brain cell is going to qoute the merits of a kiddie porn case. Kiddie porn is considered is considered a particularly vial and disgusting business. If RIAA and the MPAA are going to start quoting cases that involve kiddie porn, they are going to have a public relations nightmare. Alot of people, even those that have problems with copy music and movies illegally are going have real problems with equating copying music to having sex with children or being involved in the whole kiddie porn business. Forget the legal merrits of the argument, the mere fact that they were brought in a kiddie porn case would be enough to make a smart laywer use it. If I was laywering and defending a client, I would not let that issue die. I would force the RIAA/MPAA to argue the legal theory all over again, and any references to the kiddie porn case would envoke a tirade about how piracy is not the moral equivalent to raping a child.
I know that the Slashdot crowd has mixed feelings about VMware, but honestly, I am a huge fan of it. VMware is what allowed me to switch from Windows to Linux, while keeping the programs that I need for school, and keep my wife happy. Further, I can run a different Windows for whatever the different need may be. For example, I have one Windows for personal use, work, school, security/spyware/malware research, Windows Server 2003, Windows 98, an Oracle enviroment, FreeBSD, and several different Linux bases installed. Before I made the leap, I tried VMware in Windows, and decided that it was a viable alternative and then made the conversion to Linux. The great thing about running Windows under Linux is that I have not had any spyware problems since converting, nor virus problems -- probably because I surf the internet and do email under Linux as opposed to Windows. The downside to this approach is that it 1) Expensive, VMware cost $189 for Linux, but they do give you a 30-day license; 2.) You have to have a lot of memory in order to get the full benefit. 3.) You still need a license for Windows. However, I get better performance for my Windows installations under Linux than I did with a native Windows installation. And then you can do snapshots and other features. Even if you manage to hose your Linux installation, short of deleting your virtual machine files, your virtual machines are safe.
Anyhow, the point of the post, is that if you seriously would like to be able to migrate away from Windows, and need to be able to maintain compatablilty, then look at VMware. Unlike some of the other virtualization solutions, VMware is extremely professional, polished, and does a slick job. I am the president of a Linux and Unix User group and we distribute VMware disk images for use in VMPlayer (which is free) to help people get farmiliar with Linux. The quaility of VMware is such that after using a beta release for two months I couldn't help but buy it after the beta expired -- their beta was so professional, I was really impressed.
And no, I don't work for VMware.
Does that mean that RIAA's website is violating copyright since it "shares" copyrighted material? Afterall, I seriously doubt RIAA is going to be using the Creative Commons License on their material, but that is a copyright afterall. Then again, copyright law after 1979 makes it so anything that is created has an assumed copyright anyway. What are these laywers thinking? I wonder if these laywers are going to work for RIAA ever again. If I was a laywer working against RIAA I would argue that RIAA can't argue that point -- it is ludicris, and doesn't make sense. It would make crimials out of every web master in the United States.
The log question may be legitimate. With all the questions about trusted computing, etc., from the business perspective, what about trusted components.
As I am sitting here, I have come up a scheme that might work. 1) Each USB device has a unique key. 2.) Each key has to be registered at a central USB key server. 3.) When a USB device is plugged into a computer, the client machine queries the server to seek for authorization for the USB device to work, if the device is not authorized. 4.) Denied devices trigger security. The scheme would work in an environment where data theft is a concern since most users would not have administrative privelages anyway. Further-more devices like mice could care a unique key where they wouldn't have to be authorized unless they had memory on them.
Very true. When I was running Windows, I was constaintly having problems with infections. But then again, my laptop was being connected to unsecured and very untrusted networks. Between my schools wifi connection (which was the cleanest), my work's Windows 95/98 network, and then my apartment complex's network, I was constaintly getting slammed with the latest and greatest in virus and spyware. My school bought a site license that allowed them to give Norton Corp. edition to every student, and I had it set to update automatically everyday. But it usually wasn't a virus, but the spyware that managed to get in. And I was running Spybot and Microsoft's Anti-spyware. When I switched over to SuSE Linux 10.0, I can say that the problems stopped. But I will say that my problems with spyware and viruses were caused not because of my computing habits (I applied all the latest patches, used up-to-date spyware/malware/virus programs, refused to use IE, etc), but because my computer was used in hostile enviroment. My apartment complex was so bad that you were lucky to get out on the network to get your email, and they had six 4-mb cable connections load balanced for us guys.
I think what may be being percieved as racism may not be -- it may be communication preferences. For example, I am not racist. I don't hate anyone for their race. However, I have a strong preference for speaking to someone that can communicate effectively in English. And I think that is where the backlash towards outsourcing came from: companies attempting to save money resulted in frustrated customers, when the customers were perfectly happy before with the service they were recieving. Anyone that has spent time on a tech-support hotline or has tried to get something RMA'ed has probably experienced the "C as in Cali-fornia, F as in Flori-e-duh" sad attempt at American English with the Far East accesents. I think that any field is going to have a degree of rasicm. That is bound to happen. But in IT, with the visability, and the required communication skills, some employers may prefer the "white caucasion male" because at least the 90-year old grandma attempting to use AOL can at least understand him than the "female Indonessian Muslim." Computers frustrate a lot of users, and the non-geek crowd get especially frustrated with them. Why frustrate the users more by having communicate with someone that can't communicate effectively back and still have a non-working computer. Think about it. When it starts to affect the bottom line of a company, and it is not rooted towards race but towards skill, then it may not be racism at all. Now with that said, I have a friend that is a Pakastiani that you wouldn't know is one, because his communication skills are that of a native American. He does a great job in IT and is well liked.
I agree that he deserves what he got. Although the company should have terminated his access accounts _before_ firing him to save themselves. But that doesn't matter for arguments sake. The point is that if he was a hacker, all IT people would be screaming for him to be executed. Just because he had easy access doesn't mitigate that he committed computer tresspass. At the point of his firing, he was not authorized to even touch the computer. So I think that three months was pretty easy for him.
Very true. Even if you are one of the cynics and are stating that he is doing this to get younger votes, he probably is starting to really tick off Sony BMG. Afterall, he filed a class action lawsuit over the Sony Rootkit fiasco, and now he is looking into price fixing. Makes you wonder why he is out to get them, but it sure is nice to see a politician finally going after these guys. And the fact Sony BMG is squarely in his sights is really nice. If I was an exec over at Sony I would start looking at finding out when his term is up, and start looking at funding a potential person to run against him -- get him out of office, or get someone in Albany to cut his budget or something so that he couldn't pursue it. But I am all for it. I am really glad to see that states AG's are starting to treat RIAA like the scum they are.
Not to mention by offering a "cripple-ware" who are learning about databases a chance to learn them with out having to fork out some serious cash. Although, you can download Oracle 10g Enterprise Edition for free for development purpouses for free as long as you don't deploy it for production. But with the crippleware, like Express or "Lite" versions, then education circles can effectively teach database design to students without having to use the full-blown thing, which can be like installing a BSD system when you don't have a clue what you're doing. My first exposure to databases was using Oracle, and it was like learning how to use a gun by being introduced to a M1-A1, when I would really like have been introduced to a rifle first -- getting the idea of how to shoot a gun and the basics of shooting would have been a lot easier than learning about how to manuerviuer and performance tune a massive beast. Now, one I am taking a class next semester that is based off of Oracle 10g Express Edition, and now I want to use the tank. Needless to say, I will be having fun with my laptop that has been upgraded to handle Oracle 10g release 2 (2gig of RAM, 7200 rpm 100 gb hard drive, SuSE Enterprise Linux; I only wish I had a laptop that could handle four gig of it)
Worst idea? From a standards standpoint, it is a great idea. Opera is perhaps the most standards compliant browser out there. So developers would stop complaining that IE isn't standards compliant.Imagine, all the webmill people would shut up. Further, they could beef up Opera, and give it some access to those belove Microsoft API's, give it the packaging of Microsoft and well, now the browser wars have been won, all over again, before most of mainstream people even knew that that there was an arms built up. Instead of having to reinvent the Internet Explorer, they have effectively bought a browser, repackaged it, and shut up all the people that hate it. Think about it. I don't use Opera, but I don't have anything against it. Do you? A lot of people have problems with IE because of the Spyware and Security problems. Unless Opera is really buggy, it could provide a really nice code base for them to pound Mozilla. And I like Mozilla. And I am writing this from my Linux box.
I was thinking about taking an old Linux box, Apache, Firefox, mySQL and then some touch screen for a Christmas present for my wife. She is a fantastic cook, and I was thinking about taking her recipes and putting them onto the computer, with the touch screen in the kitchen. That'll information will make the project much, much easier. Thanks.
How about performance issues? I found that running my own DNS server actually increased my internet speeds. The computer was spending less time trying to find the websites and was actually getting to them. Then again, the internet providers in South Eastern Idaho are pretty brain dead. So it was no suprise. At the time that I put up the DNS server, I was living with room mates, and they actually connected to the server, and within about a month I had an entire building connecting to my FreeBSD 4.6 box. The best part was that they were totally understanding whenever I had to do an upgrade or took it down to work on a project or tinker. The way I had them setup was me as the primary DNS and then then I had the secondary as public DNS server. Sure, it wasn't as fast (the secondary DNS), and ever time I did something with my computer, they would ask, but they were just glad to be able to get the performance increase of being able to use my DNS server. My speculation about the reason why the DNS server was slow is because of the filters on gateway that the apartment complex was using. My guess is that the gateway was using some sort of logging. They also used MAC filtering and the like to be real pricks. Needless to say when I moved out, I was real pleased to have normal internet again. I wasn't the nicest of netizens, since I connected my DNS to the root servers, instead of my ISP, but oh well.