Just use VNC in reverse connection mode. Make the server connect to you, not the other way around. Then you're the one who opens a port briefly for the connection, not your relative.
You do realize that there are automated port scanners running on botnets all over the internet all the time, right?
I get hit with thousands of SSH requests a day on the machines I administer, all with random username/password attempts (none of which will work because I only ever allow public key auth). When one of those port scanners notices 5900 open on your granny's computer, and the password is brute-forced in a few seconds, I think you'll rethink your perspective on the issue.
Interception isn't necessary to hack a connection. There's a reason we firewall people are so difficult.
PS you could just add your own netblock to your relatives' firewall software on port 5900 and limit exposure.
Nobody said anything about 'looks', I said interface. Workflow, layout, appearance, hotkeys, mouse hysteria all work together to form a user interface. Its not about one over the other, its about taking them all into consideration when designing an interface.
If you think UI is just about which button goes on the left and which goes on the right, you're sadly mistaken.
In terminals its up because there's previous lines listed above it, and it scrolls down. In the pop-up it was down as it is in any drop-down box, because the list is below the line.
Gnome2 -> Alt+F1 for menu, Down arrow (ugh), O for Office, E for Evolution. Or Alt+F2, evo*enter*
Gnome3... bring up the overview and... ugh this is ugly. Bring up the Alt+f2 and... why no auto-complete? Why is up previous instead of down? It used to be down!
I don't want to think where I put my windows. I know my personal browser sessions are on 3, along with any game I might be playing, my E-mail and other contact managers are on 1, and my database interface and Eclipse are running on 2.
When I want to save a window for later, I toss it over to 4.
I shouldn't have to think about it. That's how proper organization works.
Imagine for a moment if your clothing drawers automatically created and deleted drawers so you had to figure out where you'd put something, and if you took the last sock out of the sock drawer, the shirt drawer wouldn't be where you expected it. We use metaphors on desktops to help users organize their data, including the folder system. Making those metaphors less realistic kills their ability to use them for organization.
No offense, but I hope I never have to use your software.
User interfaces are all about art. A right way doesn't necessarily exist. Is right clicking better than a button? Are four buttons too many, or is seven? How many view types should be on one screen?
These vary from system to system, function to function, and a piece of software may work perfectly but suck because the user can't use it efficiently or simply hates using the software.
Lots of picky examples exist from the mundane like when I mouse over the chat window in Facebook, I expect the chat window to scroll, not the main window, when I roll the mouse wheel -- to the customer I have who want Enter to go to the next field in a form not tab because that's how it would work on a spreadsheet or a calculator.
Form shouldn't override function -- but form is very important, and almost entirely art.
If I said my local computer company only deals with screens and has 300 employees and yours handles databases and networks and firewalls (successfully) with 100, that doesn't make me better.
Nope, never claimed it did. I was making a counter-argument; read the parent to my post, then mine. Mine is an attempt to invalidate theirs, that's all.
If you claim you need to track down rare drivers for Linux to work on a machine, you're either using really obscure (including incredibly new) hardware or lying.
When's the last time you ever had to install a chipset driver on Linux? I've had to install Intel/NVidia/etc. chipset drivers on Windows over a hundred times in my twenty years of professional computer support, but YMMV. Intel and AMD support Linux before Microsoft most times, for good reason too. Intel is one of the world's largest Linux users. Network cards? Same story. You might have had to do drivers for a webcam, I'd believe that, or optimal NVidia installs for 3D. But that's true on both platforms. USB printers? Those have worked for me on every random plug-in on Linux for years now, but not on Windows without a CD or a download.
Sure, its all circumstantial. I may use completely different hardware than you do. YMMV.
Interestingly, my own post above is result #2 for me.
Your comment about Torvalds makes no sense; he hasn't had a lick of anything to do with drivers in a very long time, but if you knew anything about day to day maintenance of the kernel, you'd know that already. And your DVD isn't worth a cent to your argument and makes my point for me -- you're accustomed to installing Windows drivers I said, so you don't care I said, and you admitted it. Thanks for that.
On Linux, put in a LiveCD and go. Period. Almost every damn time, on hardware over ten years old to brand new.
Thought puzzle: if you were right, the LTSP wouldn't exist.
When's the last time you needed a dashboard to safely navigate around a hole, not run into another vehicle or object or to do any other basic driving? The only important bit might be your speed and gas levels, and neither of those is a major safety issue if the dash system suddenly crashes.
Also, I suspect its much less likely to crash than the alternative (a custom OS made by your car company).
Then you have no idea what an Operating System is, or how hard it is to maintain.
I don't want a custom-made OS that only has the sixteen engineers GM assigns to it making my car OS. I want my car OS to be as stable as any other Linux device, and that's why so many companies simply use Linux instead. You don't have to write your own drivers or maintain your own file system code or write your own networking socket interfaces. Those have all been done by people who are much better at it than you.
You *want* your car to run custom software on top of a stable OS maintained by those who actually make the chips. Many many hardware companies directly contribute code to Linux for their hardware, or assist with drivers. Do you want your car's OS not benefiting from a TI patch submitted to Linux but which they can't help you with on your car which uses their chips because they don't have the source and don't know there's a bug? Do you trust your car company who just wants to sell you a new car in two years to actually write software that's stable the first time?
I install over 20 Dell servers a year running CentOS. I've never needed a single driver update. All of them are fully supported. Dell manufactures their servers specifically to be Linux supported.
Linux has shipped with more hardware support out of the box than Windows for ages now. You just don't care that you have to download Windows drivers for hardware because its normal to you.
Your statements are full of logical holes but most substantially, how about you make a guess as to what percentage that 50GB is of Sony's hourly bandwidth usage.
Go on, I'm waiting to hear how substantial you think it is.
You know that until recently, Sony Music (who makes those CDs) has almost nothing to do with SCE* which distributes the PS3, right?
Also, the Playstation allows ripping of music from CD and then transferring it to a USB device without hassle -- obviously not the same attitude as Sony Music, but keep the blinders on if you want.
The proper response to a hack is a lock-out. Do you know anything about computer security? Sony did the right thing. linkedin did not, nor did Amazon, or dozens of other hacked companies in the last few years. Locking down everything, fixing the holes and then bringing it back online is the right response.
They also gave away lots of value in free games and services as an apology afterward.
Actually there's a lot of people on it. I'm not particularly special and I have over 1000 followers myself, with many of my posts generating two or three comments and plusses. That's quite good considering none of these people know me at all.
When I tell people how to use G+, I tell them to use the search bar. People aren't accustomed to being able to Google social interactions, but you can on G+ (so long as they're not private).
You can build great relationships with complete strangers (a lot like on isolated subject forums) and choose what to share with each group, or share publicly for everyone to enjoy.
If I want tor each the average person I went to highschool with, there's still Facebook.
Slashdot Mirror
Just use VNC in reverse connection mode. Make the server connect to you, not the other way around. Then you're the one who opens a port briefly for the connection, not your relative.
You do realize that there are automated port scanners running on botnets all over the internet all the time, right?
I get hit with thousands of SSH requests a day on the machines I administer, all with random username/password attempts (none of which will work because I only ever allow public key auth). When one of those port scanners notices 5900 open on your granny's computer, and the password is brute-forced in a few seconds, I think you'll rethink your perspective on the issue.
Interception isn't necessary to hack a connection. There's a reason we firewall people are so difficult.
PS you could just add your own netblock to your relatives' firewall software on port 5900 and limit exposure.
You're very very confused.
Nobody said anything about 'looks', I said interface. Workflow, layout, appearance, hotkeys, mouse hysteria all work together to form a user interface. Its not about one over the other, its about taking them all into consideration when designing an interface.
If you think UI is just about which button goes on the left and which goes on the right, you're sadly mistaken.
In terminals its up because there's previous lines listed above it, and it scrolls down. In the pop-up it was down as it is in any drop-down box, because the list is below the line.
Gnome2 -> Alt+F1 for menu, Down arrow (ugh), O for Office, E for Evolution. Or Alt+F2, evo*enter*
Gnome3 ... bring up the overview and ... ugh this is ugly. ... why no auto-complete? Why is up previous instead of down? It used to be down!
Bring up the Alt+f2 and
So annoying.
In Gnome2 you could've set multiple panels on auto-hide and wasted about 4 pixels total.
In Gnome3 you get the designed method only. Don't forget the space at the edges of the screen I effectively lose due to gesture support.
I don't want to think where I put my windows. I know my personal browser sessions are on 3, along with any game I might be playing, my E-mail and other contact managers are on 1, and my database interface and Eclipse are running on 2.
When I want to save a window for later, I toss it over to 4.
I shouldn't have to think about it. That's how proper organization works.
Imagine for a moment if your clothing drawers automatically created and deleted drawers so you had to figure out where you'd put something, and if you took the last sock out of the sock drawer, the shirt drawer wouldn't be where you expected it. We use metaphors on desktops to help users organize their data, including the folder system. Making those metaphors less realistic kills their ability to use them for organization.
No offense, but I hope I never have to use your software.
User interfaces are all about art. A right way doesn't necessarily exist. Is right clicking better than a button? Are four buttons too many, or is seven? How many view types should be on one screen?
These vary from system to system, function to function, and a piece of software may work perfectly but suck because the user can't use it efficiently or simply hates using the software.
Lots of picky examples exist from the mundane like when I mouse over the chat window in Facebook, I expect the chat window to scroll, not the main window, when I roll the mouse wheel -- to the customer I have who want Enter to go to the next field in a form not tab because that's how it would work on a spreadsheet or a calculator.
Form shouldn't override function -- but form is very important, and almost entirely art.
Sounds inefficient to me.
If I said my local computer company only deals with screens and has 300 employees and yours handles databases and networks and firewalls (successfully) with 100, that doesn't make me better.
Nope, never claimed it did. I was making a counter-argument; read the parent to my post, then mine. Mine is an attempt to invalidate theirs, that's all.
If you claim you need to track down rare drivers for Linux to work on a machine, you're either using really obscure (including incredibly new) hardware or lying.
That's great. I've installed XP on dozens of machines that required no drivers either; they were designed to run it.
That doesn't change the facts as stated though.
When's the last time you ever had to install a chipset driver on Linux? I've had to install Intel/NVidia/etc. chipset drivers on Windows over a hundred times in my twenty years of professional computer support, but YMMV. Intel and AMD support Linux before Microsoft most times, for good reason too. Intel is one of the world's largest Linux users. Network cards? Same story. You might have had to do drivers for a webcam, I'd believe that, or optimal NVidia installs for 3D. But that's true on both platforms. USB printers? Those have worked for me on every random plug-in on Linux for years now, but not on Windows without a CD or a download.
Sure, its all circumstantial. I may use completely different hardware than you do. YMMV.
That website is almost as stupid sounding as your post.
I don't waste good time typing things to people who sound stupid, but I'm going to do everyone a favour who reads your post and thinks it makes sense:
http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2012/05/linux-hardware-support-myths-a.html
Result one of many for the query: https://www.google.ca/search?q=linux+supports+more+out+of+the+box+hardware+than+windows
Interestingly, my own post above is result #2 for me.
Your comment about Torvalds makes no sense; he hasn't had a lick of anything to do with drivers in a very long time, but if you knew anything about day to day maintenance of the kernel, you'd know that already. And your DVD isn't worth a cent to your argument and makes my point for me -- you're accustomed to installing Windows drivers I said, so you don't care I said, and you admitted it. Thanks for that.
On Linux, put in a LiveCD and go. Period. Almost every damn time, on hardware over ten years old to brand new.
Thought puzzle: if you were right, the LTSP wouldn't exist.
That would violate the DMCA in the US at least as they contain copy protection systems, but you already know that.
When's the last time you needed a dashboard to safely navigate around a hole, not run into another vehicle or object or to do any other basic driving? The only important bit might be your speed and gas levels, and neither of those is a major safety issue if the dash system suddenly crashes.
Also, I suspect its much less likely to crash than the alternative (a custom OS made by your car company).
Then you have no idea what an Operating System is, or how hard it is to maintain.
I don't want a custom-made OS that only has the sixteen engineers GM assigns to it making my car OS. I want my car OS to be as stable as any other Linux device, and that's why so many companies simply use Linux instead. You don't have to write your own drivers or maintain your own file system code or write your own networking socket interfaces. Those have all been done by people who are much better at it than you.
You *want* your car to run custom software on top of a stable OS maintained by those who actually make the chips. Many many hardware companies directly contribute code to Linux for their hardware, or assist with drivers. Do you want your car's OS not benefiting from a TI patch submitted to Linux but which they can't help you with on your car which uses their chips because they don't have the source and don't know there's a bug? Do you trust your car company who just wants to sell you a new car in two years to actually write software that's stable the first time?
Good luck with that.
I install over 20 Dell servers a year running CentOS. I've never needed a single driver update. All of them are fully supported. Dell manufactures their servers specifically to be Linux supported.
cf. http://linux.dell.com/
Linux has shipped with more hardware support out of the box than Windows for ages now. You just don't care that you have to download Windows drivers for hardware because its normal to you.
Your statements are full of logical holes but most substantially, how about you make a guess as to what percentage that 50GB is of Sony's hourly bandwidth usage.
Go on, I'm waiting to hear how substantial you think it is.
You know that until recently, Sony Music (who makes those CDs) has almost nothing to do with SCE* which distributes the PS3, right?
Also, the Playstation allows ripping of music from CD and then transferring it to a USB device without hassle -- obviously not the same attitude as Sony Music, but keep the blinders on if you want.
The proper response to a hack is a lock-out. Do you know anything about computer security? Sony did the right thing. linkedin did not, nor did Amazon, or dozens of other hacked companies in the last few years. Locking down everything, fixing the holes and then bringing it back online is the right response.
They also gave away lots of value in free games and services as an apology afterward.
Every time I think cell service options in Canada are awful, I look up the American situation, it makes me feel slightly better.
I'm amazed every time I look at this industry.
I've been on Slashdot quite a while myself and only extremely rarely seen a deletion (the same one you allude to).
Seems the trolls have new lies to spread.
Ironically Google+ also announced shortened URL availability for verified accounts, which I'm sure the Oatmeal would qualify for.
In the mean time, they did this redirect, and it is quite funny.
Actually there's a lot of people on it. I'm not particularly special and I have over 1000 followers myself, with many of my posts generating two or three comments and plusses. That's quite good considering none of these people know me at all.
When I tell people how to use G+, I tell them to use the search bar. People aren't accustomed to being able to Google social interactions, but you can on G+ (so long as they're not private).
So if you're into cars https://plus.google.com/s/cars or funny hats https://plus.google.com/s/funny%20hat or many things in between https://plus.google.com/s/needlepoint ... you can find discussions about those topics, join in, and add the people who are interesting *to you* to your circles for those topics. If they find you interesting back, they may even circle you in return.
You can build great relationships with complete strangers (a lot like on isolated subject forums) and choose what to share with each group, or share publicly for everyone to enjoy.
If I want tor each the average person I went to highschool with, there's still Facebook.