If you want help migrating to linux, I'd be glad to help, lemme know what kind of machine you have (specific hardware, age of rig, etc, what you're running and what you want to run it for). I also want to know how tech savvy you are since that will play a big role in which linux distro I'd recommend. (if you say Doom3 and Quake4, I will only say "Gentoo Linux"). Those games have Linux clients, and if you prefer just using the windows installers you can always just use Cedega or Wine.
~D
PS - I am extremely busy during the week, but I do get around to answering questions or helping people at night (on shorter days:) at least until I get my new wireless laptop, then I can help from wherever.)
In certain languages, such as Romanian.
on
Microsoft Lauds Scrum
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· Score: 2, Funny
"Scrum" means ASH... I guess... perhaps they refer to burning their products to the ground? Or what will be left of M$ once this latest FAD fails?
Please God let it be so!!
~D
PS - don't you love being well traveled, and multilingual? Makes the world shine in new colors. (Now I need to learn french since they have really hot women.)
Which IS what ALL M$ libraries are... they only open if you provide re$ource$ to Micro$oft... and sadly, not all of us have... ummm... the "re$ource$" to donate to the not so gentle giant...
I reinstalled... LINUX... and openbsd on the heavy router (its an OLD intel gaming machine turned router (450 mhz rig))
Odd thing is, I also do it for anyone who complains about spyware to me. So far they know... I WILL NOT fix windows issues, but I will "reinstall"... they have to agree that they will ask ME to install software for them unless they get it from the CVS/packagemanager that is defaulted by their distribution... overall I've had little trouble, though they complain that certain things (windows WMI DRM for example when using new porn sites) not working.
Other than that, nobody bitches except that they have to go through so much trouble to install things that come on windows cds... (and ultimately since they run in wine, the system remains unfux0r3d)... go figure eh?
Heh, I dunno... I've lived all over the world, and quite a bit of my life was spent behind enemy lines in the communist world... I daresay that because of that I learned how their educational systems worked... I even spent sometime in their schools. They were light years beyond ours in quality and breadth of material taught... While we were only taught "american studies" in 10th through 12th in public schools, little kids in those "commie bastard" countries were already learning american history and european/asian history by 8th grade... granted, not an in depth look, but a deeper look at world history than america puts into its own (for example, has anyone actually read an ENTIRE copy of the declaration of independence OR the CONSTITUTION?! IN CLASS?? I took HONORS here in the USA and they only taught snippets and not an ounce more... (granted, there was some propaganda, but the education in some of those places was very factual, i.e. "George Washington lead the american revolution against the british, dates, etc, estimated numbers of men killed, duration of war, blah blah..." they didn't preach about "the heroic efforts to free america... but they taught the necessary data... ) However, in math, science, mechanics, etc... the education was devoid of propaganda completely, they did a spectacular job of not only teaching the kids, but of EMBEDDING the knowledge into those that wanted it... since you were REQUIRED to be employed (or get beaten and thrown in jail, repeatedly, until you did) it was a VERY good motivator to find a job you'd like. As a result, despite scarcity, (most of it due to western embargoes) most of those people had the basics of life, and a bit more... clean water, clothes, food, air, a place to live, relatively low taxes, great education, and RESPECT. Those with skill and knowledge, werent' fired for "being a health insurance liability" they were VALUED because they had SKILL, and EXPERIENCE... and KNOWLEDGE... products weren't built to break, because resources were scarce, so durability was important... (the roads sucked, but most people had little need to drive, mass transit was far more developed and efficient than here, I spent my childhood riding it there, and was apalled when I came here and found "walking or taking the bus/metro somewhere" to be a nonexistent term among the locals.) Health insurance was another NASTY fear... I spent 6 weeks in a hospital as a child in intensive care, in this country, my entire extended family would be bankrupt just paying the stuff the insurance DOESNT cover... there... heh... gov't took the bill just like that... oddly enough, I also recall doing MORE recreational activities as a child than I did here, and my parents had SPARE TIME to spend with us... despite having very intensive time consuming jobs (my father was an engineer/lead engineer for an entire factory line, my mother was a lead researcher in a lab)...
Anyways, the time spent in europe was QUITE enlightening, those "stupid" commies LEARNED french, german, latin, english not as electives but as "optionally exclusive" subjects.. (choice of any number of the several available, with russian being mandatory in grade 4, but not excluding any others you wanted to take). I neednt say that I came here and flew through high school barely attending class and still in the top 5% until my senior year (skipped so much I ended up in near the 9% marker... (class of 400))
Of course, the iron curtain fell, and "freedom" rules the world... err... freedom to what? Slave away to the time clock? I've been to my home in recent years, and I've noticed one thing... its so... american now... everyone is trying to peddle shit, quality of service is CRAP... unemployment EXISTS... education is like ours... (CRAP!!)... I am greatly saddened by all this, but there is nothing I can do to change it... "freedom" reigns.
~D
PS - What this whole rant means, is that america did NOT spend "so much" on our education, we just blabbed about it as if we did, as is natural for a country
Broken record: When the Thunderbird/Sunfire integration is deliverable (or some other contender emerges from the aether), I'll be actively pushing for a wholesale dumping of Outlook. Until that moment, sadly, it's Outlook.
I drive a non synchronized stick shift because I love it, not because it is easy
Good for you. Can you grow your own food? Do you know how to farm? It isn't easy, but many people find it rewarding. It also helps to make you more self-sufficient.
The lesson here is that not everyone needs to take in interest in the same things that you do.
I learned that lesson a long time ago, but I also rejected it after I worked in IT, most people are too stupid for their own good... (and for the record, I'm not a farmer, but I do know how to grow most vegetables, and have lived on a farm for a few years of my very early childhood, some of it did stay with me... I also have a rudimentary knowledge of cooking, I can program C++ and (unfortunately) BASIC, script in Perl and PHP, speak/read/write 3 fluent languages, can fix cars, and to some extent trucks, I can do plumbing and air conditioning work, I've done gas fitting but I don't have a permit so I can't do it for a living, and I can do electrical work... and that was all before I turned 21, I'm 26 now:) do the math. Oh yeah, I'm also a pretty good shot with a rifle and I'm in great shape (can run 2 to 3 miles without stopping).
Indeed most people don't take an interest in the things I do (namely self improvement in the REAL sense of the word), but if they don't take an interest, then their collective stupidity will only allow to the market the ideas that I can't stand... which will, in the long run, turn ME into a pathetic quivering mass of lard like them... sitting on the couch all day, hoping that "Friends" will live for them.
Also, to throw in another bone, WHY are we making "laws to protect" "children"... if they can't learn to think for themselves they will end up lazy fat idiots who only want someone to cater to their whims and can't do a thing on their own... sure the governments want that... less chance someone will take their chewbone away if everyone is enslaved to the punchclock and asinine laws that make little sense in a "free" society... but in all reality, do you wonder why so many of these people living in the so called "land of the free" cannot accept the responsibilities that came with freedom... and thus are slowly throwing it away for themselves AND for those of us that do want it?
I say, give people choices, but make THEM responsible for their decisions. Not corporations, not governments... and make the penalties more severe... "you want outlook? okay, its easy to use, but don't cry or contest a bill from your IT goons, because YOU made that decision, YOU were dumb enough to be sold on windows for business uses..."... or better yet... "can't take care of your child? then don't fucking cry if he or she gets kidnapped or abused"... its survival people... and the more we pamper our panzy asses, the more we'll become pathetic and unlikely TO SURVIVE IN THE LONG RUN!
I am quite aware about OWA, outlook web access as M$ calls it, I'm also aware about what they DONT tell you (that its VERY easily cracked by anyone willing to put the time and effort into it).
The basic version works with Firefox, but it is mainly an active X thing, though in all honesty you could build a nicer OSS version in PHP without nearly as many headaches and help the community as well (it has already been done, but not by M$).
Anyways, I don't know how YOU have all of these issues, most of my things work... the only bug driving me up the wall, is the fact that M$ still has that broken IIS/Explorer transmit/receive thing with non M$ browser/server etc.. but my servers don't refuse User Agents IE, just send them to a plain HTML/PHP and throttle the number that can reach the site and print a warning to PLEASE UPGRADE TO A BETTER BROWSER HREF=FIREFOX, etc... I honestly prefer Konqueror or Safari, since most of what works on them will work easilly on the other two bigger browsers... mostly.
But its okay, they'll patch the broken IIS/IE transmits in Vista 3, and call it an "innovation"... as if proper TCP behaviour was a "new innovation"... heh... and the fools will gobble it up.
~D
PS - I drive a non synchronized stick shift because I love it, not because it is easy, and I have learned how it can make my life easy... especially in traffic jams...:) Hint... I bothered to learn... what an amazing breakthrough concept, eh? That learning would improve me as a person and make my job life easier and less boring... wow... amazing indeed.
When people have used nothing before, training is easy, they'll screw it all up, I know since I had to train when I did IT... I hated it... and loved it. I could get MORE billable hours out of training people than out of "fixing" things... they always got upset when I did the spyware thing every time. (And always found stuff, despite holding sessions with the client's staff.) But yeah... training WAS more expensive than an exchange license, you forget the big iron to run that piece of shit 2003, AND 2003 (probably SBServer so you get the whole enchillada).
I've seen those servers hacked, cracked and fucked by just viewing sites... and I don't mean porn either.
There are reasons why hackers and geeks hate M$, and just because they are a big "easy" in the corporate climbing agenda, doesn't mean that small businesses or people who've not been stuck on exchange before can't use other things.
I learned a lot of things on OSS and its helped me enjoy leaving IT all the more. IT is probably the least enjoyable job OUT there... you work your ass off and get fucked over, all to make M$ more money... no thanks.
~D
PS - try PHPGroupware... its been awhile since I've needed to share a calendar though....
I spent my childhood on the eastern block, in a country to remain nameless (near the black sea , that should narrow it down) and every child's parent was responsible for their own... and you know what? VERY FEW if ANY of the kids I knew, and I grew up in the equivalent of "the hood" and ran the equivalent of a "gang" (small one at that, about 8 or 10 members) and played in soccer clubs and came home late at night...
Difference being, my father taught me to fight, my mother to avoid problems such as getting in cars with strangers... thus, when I left my home, dad knew other kids would come to complain that I beat the fuck out of them (yep, and I was the little guy) and mom knew that he wouldn't "rightfully punish me" (he'd ask, "why, so he can learn that defending himself is wrong?")
Sadly in the fine USA, justice is a forgotten term, and "consequences" are only monetary... many a time a good punch in the face would teach far more than a lawsuit. Many people who are OH so biblical forgot the old adage about sparing the rod.... Parents are sparing EVERYTHING from their kids, starting with the proverbial rod and ending with the very real absence of involvement of any kind.
Fuck the system, when I decide to have kids, they will be raised right... it worked for me, worked for my brother, worked for my father who weathered several wars in the military and only ended up getting hurt being run over by a drunk driver (yeah, go fucking figure, eh?) It also worked for several dozen of my former friends from childhood, all of whom grew up, grew up well, and are extremely self reliant... not something very common in the USA where everyone expects to get approval from the system before moving on. Fuck it all. Live life like its yours, because it is. Too many want to have it lived for them... and Bush, Cheney, Gates, the supreme court and company will be glad to do it for you, since you pay them every time they make a decision for you.
I say, fuckem all... I'll live my life the way I want to, I will abide by the honor code **I** impose upon myself, and when someone trespasses against me, without it being a mistake... well, I defend myself and I don't need a gun to break their arm in three different places if that is what it comes down to:)
You know, so that they can remain compatible with "windows" ? or is the new product a complete, linux based rewrite with the old front end?
Honestly folks, how many times has microsoft and its partners delivered a secure, clean and workable product?
Two of these three is ALWAYS missing:
Secure Clean Workable Good Pricing Value for money
But usually more than 2 missing. After my last "hunt" for drivers in windows XP and 2000, I don't even find them "well supported" anymore. But then again, I have exotic hardware, not a 499 + 500 dollar rebate PC from walmart.
And the funny part is that when I asked him "why not upgrade?" he asked me "are you nuts?!"
Seems he prefers to build a bastion host the right way, and leave it on, than to constantly patch systems so he can "have something to show".
Linux is constantly getting updated, but it is much like BSD... once you've built an application specific rig... perhaps the ONLY things needing updating are things that are broken... which on truly "secured" hosts, should not be broken. New updates can sometimes introduce holes that break a system... This is why many organizations do not blindly apply patches ESPECIALLY to their Microsoft systems. Microsoft's patches ROUTINELY break functionallity and security on older apps, regardless of the fact that half the world uses them... (*cough* Nmap *cough*)
Anyways, enough of the bitching. If a corporation wants to run something other than Linux, let them. Corporations run whatever they please. They are all the equivalent of psychotic axe wielding murderers for a neighbor... if you base your faith on corporations, you're downright fucked... Look around at what "corporatism" has brought us.
Because we are a corporately owned nation, we can buy, sell and genocide entire defenseless nations (*cough* Iraq *cough*) but we cannot easilly recover from a strike against us... is George Bush going to declare war on weather now? It is sad when one little natural weather event can trash "the worlds mightiest country". Would the Chinese be as crippled as we are? Probably not, because they don't depend on greedy corporations to dictate prices on vital resources... they just take them if they need them. Do you care if Unocal uses Linux and Exxon is a windows shop when they both slap you in the face with 4.25/gallon??
~D
PS - Making critical applications server centric nowadays is like putting 1/3'd of the nation's oil refineries in one VERY EASILY FLOODED valley 60 feet below sea level... in other words... A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN... well... guess what... it happened. Everyone give a hand of applause to idiotic design in action. Perhaps now the morons in charge will notice what guys like me were saying... "don't build a house of straw in a windy valley and worry about the big bad wolf coming to huff and puff... worry about the wind, the valley and the straws". For those of you who are republicans (i.e. unthinking puppets, I will explain my quote: "do not be worrying about a terrorist attack, when the true enemy is the companies that have been fucking the nation with the help of the greedy pigs in the republican party... worry about the fact that our nation can be so easilly hit by a storm and everyone panicks. That is what worries me. If a nuke had gone off, everyone would be up in arms, and invading another helpless country... who're we gonna invade now?! God? Obviously there's a message here that we've been saying to our "leaders" for the last 5 years... **stay the fuck out of other people's business if you can't even run yours right** but rich republican right wingers don't listen... so let them watch nature at work.)
That is STILL running Fedora Core 1... yes folks, FC1... it is a network firewall and router. The guy who ran it, followed that concept of "hardening a router instead of wasting time endlessly patching".
He's had it up and running since 2000 and the only time he gets "downtime" is when the power goes out (once every 6 or 7 months) and the UPS doesn't last the duration of the blackout.
But our country is a LOT less efficient than any european nation I've been to. With a few exceptions, everything is within walking distance in europe (for example stores, libraries, etc).
Up here, if you decide to walk somewhere, you'll return just in time to be late for work the next day, unless you're in the city, then you'll probably get mugged or raped unless you look like you can take care of yourself...
The other downside is that the quality of gas, and the metering at stations here in the states is no longer properly regulated. I've gotten less than 1 gallon for the stated "price" of 1 gallon at quite a few gas stations.
So for the current price of $2.75/gallon (and I'm talking about EAST coast, not california here) you may not even be getting 1 entire gallon of gas for your $2.75 My car used to fill up on 14 gallons of gas (official ratings for the tank, and it has NO leaks) and the receipts I got from it back in 99 before bush and the oil crisis show this. Now, in the post bush world, the car's gas tank has been getting progressively bigger. I can pump nearly 16 gallons when it nears empty. Quite amazing feat on behalf of my car, to increase its storage capacity... someone must've replaced my gas tank in between my commutes to work with a larger one. (Or maybe we're all just getting cheated and don't know it.)
Couple that with the fact that the USA was designed by people who assumed that driving would always be practical and not too expensive... and you got your current situation, with Dubbyah and his crew wanting to probably reduce the human race to serfs again. Make moving around hard, and requiring black gold (oil) and you got your new feudal-christian system back in place. Served with a healthy dose of talking heads and 4 star general talking heads to help you feel better about giving it all up to "the man" (C).
I know I'm answering a troll, but gas/petrol is much the same as bandwidth... those who need it, often don't have alternatives, and must pay for shitty service and a shitty/neutered/braindamaged product... otherwise they're stuck in dialup hell.
I don't pirate files, but I do stream bittorent gentoo images off my server, relatively nonstop. I've had to throttle it so it won't cause too much interference with one of the IP phones in the house, which leaves us at about 12kbytes up out of the 37kbytes upstream max cap. I don't know WHERE you 128 kbytes guys are... but neither Cox nor Comcast in VA or MD offered it to me when I was there.
WHERE THE HELL are you... "petrol", when I lived in europe referred to CRUDE oil, not gasoline.
And then there are those who squander both, and those who squander neither... my point exactly:)
I said that the lesson most kids learn when going to PE in school is that they are made painfully aware of a falsehood that takes years and effort to transcend.
Windows is primarily sold on its "merits" as being easy to use. Most home users and more than half of the business users I ever dealt with had to be hand held through plugging in their printers to the back of the machine and checking outlet power...
These are not people who would even understand not running as admin (especially when a new piece of software comes in and they need to use it tomorrow but can't afford another $200.00 to $300.00 bill to have a tech come out for 2 or 3 hours. (1 hour of work waiting for app to install and patches to come down, some driving each way, which also gets billed to them. And don't forget the extra 2 hours to practice with them and make sure they know WTF they are doing... (nevermind watching them go insane when they have to install apps as admin, but end up reverting to userland for everything else... wait till you see their frustration (after which they'll argue that the bill isn't right, because you made things harder, etc)
How then, is this any "easier" than linux or bsd?
Oh, and are you familiar with Shatter Attacks ? (I believe in more educated computing environments (i.e. non windows) they are called Privilege Escalation Attacks. I seem to recall that Microsoft claimed to have fixed theirs (especially the one from the winlogon process), but to this day, even a guest account on their graphical console can be used to subvert restrictions by the most trivial virus programs out there... I can't write one but I know at least 3 coders who can (but won't, that's a different story).. I happen to live with one of them, the only issue being that he's sworn never to write a line of code for M$ ever again. What about hard core hackers who know the innards of windows and its sourcecode far more than my recently graduated roomie and his friends?
Anyways, a lot of what you say sounds like you get your training and education from the MCSE camp, where almost everything works on paper and supposedly works in real life too. I was an MCSE, before I shelved that crap, trust me, even IF M$ was the best coding group ever, the users they cater to, are still the stupidest bunch ever... there is no practical way to teach them safe computing practices and have them adhere to them. They will do what is easiest and most convenient.
Really? I was athletic in high school, but not all THAT athletic... here's what I meant by the above... if with my brother's help (he really ought to be a physical trainer, he's awesome) I got my lung capacity to allow me to run 2 miles straight without dropping in only ONE freaking month, then something is AWFULLY wrong with PE in schools. They aren't trying to teach kids to stay in shape, they're just wasting everyone's time with a little physical activity but no real PHYSICAL EDUCATION.
For comparison, I could never run more than half a mile before needing to walk for a bit and catch my breath... I thought it was genetic until this last year with my bro's help, I proved to myself it was lack of EDUCATION about exercise that made me think I was incapable of running a straight mile without running out of breath. (Granted it took work on my part too... but the point is, I had previously thought it to be the domain of pure sports jocks who run all day and drink power drinks and the like.)
You're dealing with Christian fanatics and right wing psychotics. Neither of these groups would have any trouble slapping ALL content THEY find objectionable to THEMSELVES into the XXX TLD.
Problem with it is that they'll most likely automatically demand (by law, easily enough) that every ISP to block anything they don't like, the ones that don't comply will be shot in the foot in various, republican financial hamstringing type ways...
Who knows, Microsoft might petition that Slashdot and OSDL/Sourceforge/Newsforge get put in this TLD because they're "offensive" to "microsofties and minors".
Sounds far fetched, but that's what my grandparents thought about the fall of the berlin wall. (And what do you know...)
That being said, windows is just notorious for crappy code in name of ease of use (which they achieve to some extent or other but with too much tradeoff and too much cpu hunger).
I have run both BSD and Linux in various flavors. I eventually settled on Debian and Gentoo. Gentoo for home and office use and Debian OR Gentoo for servers. If I need a rock solid monster server, then its probably gentoo or bsd.
Going onto security...
Rootkits have always been a threat to admininstrators everywhere, but in windows, even spyware can autoinstall various programs, and it takes a lot of work and authorization from microshit to actually change anything in the OS without violating the EULA.
Going on from there...
In any of the OSS *nixes *nuxes or *bsd's you're free to modify or change how the system works. Nobody will sue you or void your warranty. You're also free to learn how to code to standards that microsoft later revises and creates their own incompatible and buggy versions around.
This may sound like a troll but think closely, and you'll see I'm right. It isn't the fact that an OS can have rootkits... its that in windows, almost anything can install a rootkit without antivirus or spyware proggies to stop it (and most windows IDS are clunky at best and expensive for most small shops to own or operate.)
Last of all, think about it. Everyone talks about "securing your windoze box". WHY?!?! If an average user has to go through ALL that work (in their perspective) after they paid 300 bucks for that POS, then why not download linux or buy a batch of cds from cheapbytes. Same amount of work, better results, safer system (relatively) and linux will not fall apart if you disable system services. And you don't have to waste 20 minutes on the phone if you want to reinstall the system or pay MORE just to install it on another system. It helps if you make a donation to your preferred project
PE will not teach kids how to run, how to exercise or anything except this:
Jocks are "naturally gifted" at being thugs and winning at sports, but geeks are "naturally gifted" at things that require two braincells or more actually firing electrical impulses at each other.
Get what I'm saying?
If you want them exercising, teach them properly. Teach them to avoid junk food and to use "treats" in the right amounts. Otherwise they'll eventually get lazy and become fat. Later they'll say that they were "naturally prone" to becoming fat...
That being said, a bit off topic, here's my other on topic material.
Get your kids to THINK. Exercise is good, but make sure they get to think... and yes, TV is out. I'm considering disconnecting the TV altogether once I move again. Not because it costs 60 bucks a month (that's a reason too) but because other than PBS, a few good friday shows on scifi and discovery/history/learning channels, everything else is tripe).
I think TV is a brainwashing medium, and given the options, I'd sooner have my kids join the local Linux User Group or Slashdot meetup than have them vegetating in front of a TV.
Slashdot Mirror
If you want help migrating to linux, I'd be glad to help, lemme know what kind of machine you have (specific hardware, age of rig, etc, what you're running and what you want to run it for). I also want to know how tech savvy you are since that will play a big role in which linux distro I'd recommend. (if you say Doom3 and Quake4, I will only say "Gentoo Linux"). Those games have Linux clients, and if you prefer just using the windows installers you can always just use Cedega or Wine.
:) at least until I get my new wireless laptop, then I can help from wherever.)
~D
PS - I am extremely busy during the week, but I do get around to answering questions or helping people at night (on shorter days
"Scrum" means ASH... I guess... perhaps they refer to burning their products to the ground? Or what will be left of M$ once this latest FAD fails?
Please God let it be so!!
~D
PS - don't you love being well traveled, and multilingual? Makes the world shine in new colors. (Now I need to learn french since they have really hot women.)
Which IS what ALL M$ libraries are... they only open if you provide re$ource$ to Micro$oft... and sadly, not all of us have... ummm... the "re$ource$" to donate to the not so gentle giant...
~D
I reinstalled... LINUX... and openbsd on the heavy router (its an OLD intel gaming machine turned router (450 mhz rig))
Odd thing is, I also do it for anyone who complains about spyware to me. So far they know... I WILL NOT fix windows issues, but I will "reinstall"... they have to agree that they will ask ME to install software for them unless they get it from the CVS/packagemanager that is defaulted by their distribution... overall I've had little trouble, though they complain that certain things (windows WMI DRM for example when using new porn sites) not working.
Other than that, nobody bitches except that they have to go through so much trouble to install things that come on windows cds... (and ultimately since they run in wine, the system remains unfux0r3d)... go figure eh?
~D
Heh, I dunno... I've lived all over the world, and quite a bit of my life was spent behind enemy lines in the communist world... I daresay that because of that I learned how their educational systems worked... I even spent sometime in their schools. They were light years beyond ours in quality and breadth of material taught... While we were only taught "american studies" in 10th through 12th in public schools, little kids in those "commie bastard" countries were already learning american history and european/asian history by 8th grade... granted, not an in depth look, but a deeper look at world history than america puts into its own (for example, has anyone actually read an ENTIRE copy of the declaration of independence OR the CONSTITUTION?! IN CLASS?? I took HONORS here in the USA and they only taught snippets and not an ounce more... (granted, there was some propaganda, but the education in some of those places was very factual, i.e. "George Washington lead the american revolution against the british, dates, etc, estimated numbers of men killed, duration of war, blah blah..." they didn't preach about "the heroic efforts to free america... but they taught the necessary data... ) However, in math, science, mechanics, etc... the education was devoid of propaganda completely, they did a spectacular job of not only teaching the kids, but of EMBEDDING the knowledge into those that wanted it... since you were REQUIRED to be employed (or get beaten and thrown in jail, repeatedly, until you did) it was a VERY good motivator to find a job you'd like. As a result, despite scarcity, (most of it due to western embargoes) most of those people had the basics of life, and a bit more... clean water, clothes, food, air, a place to live, relatively low taxes, great education, and RESPECT. Those with skill and knowledge, werent' fired for "being a health insurance liability" they were VALUED because they had SKILL, and EXPERIENCE... and KNOWLEDGE... products weren't built to break, because resources were scarce, so durability was important... (the roads sucked, but most people had little need to drive, mass transit was far more developed and efficient than here, I spent my childhood riding it there, and was apalled when I came here and found "walking or taking the bus/metro somewhere" to be a nonexistent term among the locals.) Health insurance was another NASTY fear... I spent 6 weeks in a hospital as a child in intensive care, in this country, my entire extended family would be bankrupt just paying the stuff the insurance DOESNT cover... there... heh... gov't took the bill just like that... oddly enough, I also recall doing MORE recreational activities as a child than I did here, and my parents had SPARE TIME to spend with us... despite having very intensive time consuming jobs (my father was an engineer/lead engineer for an entire factory line, my mother was a lead researcher in a lab)...
... american now... everyone is trying to peddle shit, quality of service is CRAP... unemployment EXISTS... education is like ours... (CRAP!!)... I am greatly saddened by all this, but there is nothing I can do to change it... "freedom" reigns.
Anyways, the time spent in europe was QUITE enlightening, those "stupid" commies LEARNED french, german, latin, english not as electives but as "optionally exclusive" subjects.. (choice of any number of the several available, with russian being mandatory in grade 4, but not excluding any others you wanted to take). I neednt say that I came here and flew through high school barely attending class and still in the top 5% until my senior year (skipped so much I ended up in near the 9% marker... (class of 400))
Of course, the iron curtain fell, and "freedom" rules the world... err... freedom to what? Slave away to the time clock? I've been to my home in recent years, and I've noticed one thing... its so
~D
PS - What this whole rant means, is that america did NOT spend "so much" on our education, we just blabbed about it as if we did, as is natural for a country
Broken record: When the Thunderbird/Sunfire integration is deliverable (or some other contender emerges from the aether), I'll be actively pushing for a wholesale dumping of Outlook. Until that moment, sadly, it's Outlook.
:) do the math. Oh yeah, I'm also a pretty good shot with a rifle and I'm in great shape (can run 2 to 3 miles without stopping).
I drive a non synchronized stick shift because I love it, not because it is easy
Good for you. Can you grow your own food? Do you know how to farm? It isn't easy, but many people find it rewarding. It also helps to make you more self-sufficient.
The lesson here is that not everyone needs to take in interest in the same things that you do.
I learned that lesson a long time ago, but I also rejected it after I worked in IT, most people are too stupid for their own good... (and for the record, I'm not a farmer, but I do know how to grow most vegetables, and have lived on a farm for a few years of my very early childhood, some of it did stay with me... I also have a rudimentary knowledge of cooking, I can program C++ and (unfortunately) BASIC, script in Perl and PHP, speak/read/write 3 fluent languages, can fix cars, and to some extent trucks, I can do plumbing and air conditioning work, I've done gas fitting but I don't have a permit so I can't do it for a living, and I can do electrical work... and that was all before I turned 21, I'm 26 now
Indeed most people don't take an interest in the things I do (namely self improvement in the REAL sense of the word), but if they don't take an interest, then their collective stupidity will only allow to the market the ideas that I can't stand... which will, in the long run, turn ME into a pathetic quivering mass of lard like them... sitting on the couch all day, hoping that "Friends" will live for them.
Also, to throw in another bone, WHY are we making "laws to protect" "children"... if they can't learn to think for themselves they will end up lazy fat idiots who only want someone to cater to their whims and can't do a thing on their own... sure the governments want that... less chance someone will take their chewbone away if everyone is enslaved to the punchclock and asinine laws that make little sense in a "free" society... but in all reality, do you wonder why so many of these people living in the so called "land of the free" cannot accept the responsibilities that came with freedom... and thus are slowly throwing it away for themselves AND for those of us that do want it?
I say, give people choices, but make THEM responsible for their decisions. Not corporations, not governments... and make the penalties more severe... "you want outlook? okay, its easy to use, but don't cry or contest a bill from your IT goons, because YOU made that decision, YOU were dumb enough to be sold on windows for business uses..."... or better yet... "can't take care of your child? then don't fucking cry if he or she gets kidnapped or abused"... its survival people... and the more we pamper our panzy asses, the more we'll become pathetic and unlikely TO SURVIVE IN THE LONG RUN!
~D
I am quite aware about OWA, outlook web access as M$ calls it, I'm also aware about what they DONT tell you (that its VERY easily cracked by anyone willing to put the time and effort into it).
:) Hint... I bothered to learn... what an amazing breakthrough concept, eh? That learning would improve me as a person and make my job life easier and less boring... wow... amazing indeed.
The basic version works with Firefox, but it is mainly an active X thing, though in all honesty you could build a nicer OSS version in PHP without nearly as many headaches and help the community as well (it has already been done, but not by M$).
Anyways, I don't know how YOU have all of these issues, most of my things work... the only bug driving me up the wall, is the fact that M$ still has that broken IIS/Explorer transmit/receive thing with non M$ browser/server etc.. but my servers don't refuse User Agents IE, just send them to a plain HTML/PHP and throttle the number that can reach the site and print a warning to PLEASE UPGRADE TO A BETTER BROWSER HREF=FIREFOX, etc... I honestly prefer Konqueror or Safari, since most of what works on them will work easilly on the other two bigger browsers... mostly.
But its okay, they'll patch the broken IIS/IE transmits in Vista 3, and call it an "innovation"... as if proper TCP behaviour was a "new innovation"... heh... and the fools will gobble it up.
~D
PS - I drive a non synchronized stick shift because I love it, not because it is easy, and I have learned how it can make my life easy... especially in traffic jams...
When people have used nothing before, training is easy, they'll screw it all up, I know since I had to train when I did IT... I hated it... and loved it. I could get MORE billable hours out of training people than out of "fixing" things... they always got upset when I did the spyware thing every time. (And always found stuff, despite holding sessions with the client's staff.) But yeah... training WAS more expensive than an exchange license, you forget the big iron to run that piece of shit 2003, AND 2003 (probably SBServer so you get the whole enchillada).
... and I don't mean porn either.
I've seen those servers hacked, cracked and fucked by just viewing sites
There are reasons why hackers and geeks hate M$, and just because they are a big "easy" in the corporate climbing agenda, doesn't mean that small businesses or people who've not been stuck on exchange before can't use other things.
I learned a lot of things on OSS and its helped me enjoy leaving IT all the more. IT is probably the least enjoyable job OUT there... you work your ass off and get fucked over, all to make M$ more money... no thanks.
~D
PS - try PHPGroupware... its been awhile since I've needed to share a calendar though....
I spent my childhood on the eastern block, in a country to remain nameless (near the black sea , that should narrow it down) and every child's parent was responsible for their own... and you know what? VERY FEW if ANY of the kids I knew, and I grew up in the equivalent of "the hood" and ran the equivalent of a "gang" (small one at that, about 8 or 10 members) and played in soccer clubs and came home late at night...
:)
Difference being, my father taught me to fight, my mother to avoid problems such as getting in cars with strangers... thus, when I left my home, dad knew other kids would come to complain that I beat the fuck out of them (yep, and I was the little guy) and mom knew that he wouldn't "rightfully punish me" (he'd ask, "why, so he can learn that defending himself is wrong?")
Sadly in the fine USA, justice is a forgotten term, and "consequences" are only monetary... many a time a good punch in the face would teach far more than a lawsuit. Many people who are OH so biblical forgot the old adage about sparing the rod.... Parents are sparing EVERYTHING from their kids, starting with the proverbial rod and ending with the very real absence of involvement of any kind.
Fuck the system, when I decide to have kids, they will be raised right... it worked for me, worked for my brother, worked for my father who weathered several wars in the military and only ended up getting hurt being run over by a drunk driver (yeah, go fucking figure, eh?) It also worked for several dozen of my former friends from childhood, all of whom grew up, grew up well, and are extremely self reliant... not something very common in the USA where everyone expects to get approval from the system before moving on. Fuck it all. Live life like its yours, because it is. Too many want to have it lived for them... and Bush, Cheney, Gates, the supreme court and company will be glad to do it for you, since you pay them every time they make a decision for you.
I say, fuckem all... I'll live my life the way I want to, I will abide by the honor code **I** impose upon myself, and when someone trespasses against me, without it being a mistake... well, I defend myself and I don't need a gun to break their arm in three different places if that is what it comes down to
~D
In case anyone missed it, I have an error... its "two of these FIVE" not three.
You know, so that they can remain compatible with "windows" ? or is the new product a complete, linux based rewrite with the old front end?
Honestly folks, how many times has microsoft and its partners delivered a secure, clean and workable product?
Two of these three is ALWAYS missing:
Secure
Clean
Workable
Good Pricing
Value for money
But usually more than 2 missing. After my last "hunt" for drivers in windows XP and 2000, I don't even find them "well supported" anymore. But then again, I have exotic hardware, not a 499 + 500 dollar rebate PC from walmart.
~D
You mean as opposed to "windows fags" who will just take it up the ass, and beg AND pay for more of the same??
All to suck on Bill and Ballmer's "micro" "soft" ??
Heh... go figure, I knew windows people were weird, but this takes the cake.
(if you all metamods start modding brainlessly, just leave this post alone, there's better places to earn your mod points for the day)
But thanks... I didn't even notice the error. (I got out of college in '00 so I consider that to be the "beginning" of "hell" :)
~D
Oh... umm... I guess now I have.
And the funny part is that when I asked him "why not upgrade?" he asked me "are you nuts?!"
Seems he prefers to build a bastion host the right way, and leave it on, than to constantly patch systems so he can "have something to show".
Linux is constantly getting updated, but it is much like BSD... once you've built an application specific rig... perhaps the ONLY things needing updating are things that are broken... which on truly "secured" hosts, should not be broken. New updates can sometimes introduce holes that break a system... This is why many organizations do not blindly apply patches ESPECIALLY to their Microsoft systems. Microsoft's patches ROUTINELY break functionallity and security on older apps, regardless of the fact that half the world uses them... (*cough* Nmap *cough*)
Anyways, enough of the bitching. If a corporation wants to run something other than Linux, let them. Corporations run whatever they please. They are all the equivalent of psychotic axe wielding murderers for a neighbor... if you base your faith on corporations, you're downright fucked... Look around at what "corporatism" has brought us.
Because we are a corporately owned nation, we can buy, sell and genocide entire defenseless nations (*cough* Iraq *cough*) but we cannot easilly recover from a strike against us... is George Bush going to declare war on weather now? It is sad when one little natural weather event can trash "the worlds mightiest country". Would the Chinese be as crippled as we are? Probably not, because they don't depend on greedy corporations to dictate prices on vital resources... they just take them if they need them. Do you care if Unocal uses Linux and Exxon is a windows shop when they both slap you in the face with 4.25/gallon??
~D
PS - Making critical applications server centric nowadays is like putting 1/3'd of the nation's oil refineries in one VERY EASILY FLOODED valley 60 feet below sea level... in other words... A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN... well... guess what... it happened. Everyone give a hand of applause to idiotic design in action. Perhaps now the morons in charge will notice what guys like me were saying... "don't build a house of straw in a windy valley and worry about the big bad wolf coming to huff and puff... worry about the wind, the valley and the straws". For those of you who are republicans (i.e. unthinking puppets, I will explain my quote: "do not be worrying about a terrorist attack, when the true enemy is the companies that have been fucking the nation with the help of the greedy pigs in the republican party... worry about the fact that our nation can be so easilly hit by a storm and everyone panicks. That is what worries me. If a nuke had gone off, everyone would be up in arms, and invading another helpless country... who're we gonna invade now?! God? Obviously there's a message here that we've been saying to our "leaders" for the last 5 years... **stay the fuck out of other people's business if you can't even run yours right** but rich republican right wingers don't listen... so let them watch nature at work.)
That is STILL running Fedora Core 1... yes folks, FC1... it is a network firewall and router. The guy who ran it, followed that concept of "hardening a router instead of wasting time endlessly patching".
He's had it up and running since 2000 and the only time he gets "downtime" is when the power goes out (once every 6 or 7 months) and the UPS doesn't last the duration of the blackout.
~Daedalus
But our country is a LOT less efficient than any european nation I've been to. With a few exceptions, everything is within walking distance in europe (for example stores, libraries, etc).
... "petrol", when I lived in europe referred to CRUDE oil, not gasoline.
Up here, if you decide to walk somewhere, you'll return just in time to be late for work the next day, unless you're in the city, then you'll probably get mugged or raped unless you look like you can take care of yourself...
The other downside is that the quality of gas, and the metering at stations here in the states is no longer properly regulated. I've gotten less than 1 gallon for the stated "price" of 1 gallon at quite a few gas stations.
So for the current price of $2.75/gallon (and I'm talking about EAST coast, not california here) you may not even be getting 1 entire gallon of gas for your $2.75 My car used to fill up on 14 gallons of gas (official ratings for the tank, and it has NO leaks) and the receipts I got from it back in 99 before bush and the oil crisis show this. Now, in the post bush world, the car's gas tank has been getting progressively bigger. I can pump nearly 16 gallons when it nears empty. Quite amazing feat on behalf of my car, to increase its storage capacity... someone must've replaced my gas tank in between my commutes to work with a larger one. (Or maybe we're all just getting cheated and don't know it.)
Couple that with the fact that the USA was designed by people who assumed that driving would always be practical and not too expensive... and you got your current situation, with Dubbyah and his crew wanting to probably reduce the human race to serfs again. Make moving around hard, and requiring black gold (oil) and you got your new feudal-christian system back in place. Served with a healthy dose of talking heads and 4 star general talking heads to help you feel better about giving it all up to "the man" (C).
I know I'm answering a troll, but gas/petrol is much the same as bandwidth... those who need it, often don't have alternatives, and must pay for shitty service and a shitty/neutered/braindamaged product... otherwise they're stuck in dialup hell.
I don't pirate files, but I do stream bittorent gentoo images off my server, relatively nonstop. I've had to throttle it so it won't cause too much interference with one of the IP phones in the house, which leaves us at about 12kbytes up out of the 37kbytes upstream max cap. I don't know WHERE you 128 kbytes guys are... but neither Cox nor Comcast in VA or MD offered it to me when I was there.
WHERE THE HELL are you
I don't have issues with "adobe updates"... oh did I say that to windows users again?
Yeah... its nice to not be running that cpu hog. (well, both of them, windows and adobe acrobat)
Later.
And then there are those who squander both, and those who squander neither... my point exactly :)
I said that the lesson most kids learn when going to PE in school is that they are made painfully aware of a falsehood that takes years and effort to transcend.
Exactly, how many REGULAR home users can do this?
Windows is primarily sold on its "merits" as being easy to use. Most home users and more than half of the business users I ever dealt with had to be hand held through plugging in their printers to the back of the machine and checking outlet power...
These are not people who would even understand not running as admin (especially when a new piece of software comes in and they need to use it tomorrow but can't afford another $200.00 to $300.00 bill to have a tech come out for 2 or 3 hours. (1 hour of work waiting for app to install and patches to come down, some driving each way, which also gets billed to them. And don't forget the extra 2 hours to practice with them and make sure they know WTF they are doing... (nevermind watching them go insane when they have to install apps as admin, but end up reverting to userland for everything else... wait till you see their frustration (after which they'll argue that the bill isn't right, because you made things harder, etc)
How then, is this any "easier" than linux or bsd?
Oh, and are you familiar with Shatter Attacks ? (I believe in more educated computing environments (i.e. non windows) they are called Privilege Escalation Attacks. I seem to recall that Microsoft claimed to have fixed theirs (especially the one from the winlogon process), but to this day, even a guest account on their graphical console can be used to subvert restrictions by the most trivial virus programs out there... I can't write one but I know at least 3 coders who can (but won't, that's a different story).. I happen to live with one of them, the only issue being that he's sworn never to write a line of code for M$ ever again. What about hard core hackers who know the innards of windows and its sourcecode far more than my recently graduated roomie and his friends?
Anyways, a lot of what you say sounds like you get your training and education from the MCSE camp, where almost everything works on paper and supposedly works in real life too. I was an MCSE, before I shelved that crap, trust me, even IF M$ was the best coding group ever, the users they cater to, are still the stupidest bunch ever... there is no practical way to teach them safe computing practices and have them adhere to them. They will do what is easiest and most convenient.
Really? I was athletic in high school, but not all THAT athletic... here's what I meant by the above... if with my brother's help (he really ought to be a physical trainer, he's awesome) I got my lung capacity to allow me to run 2 miles straight without dropping in only ONE freaking month, then something is AWFULLY wrong with PE in schools. They aren't trying to teach kids to stay in shape, they're just wasting everyone's time with a little physical activity but no real PHYSICAL EDUCATION.
For comparison, I could never run more than half a mile before needing to walk for a bit and catch my breath... I thought it was genetic until this last year with my bro's help, I proved to myself it was lack of EDUCATION about exercise that made me think I was incapable of running a straight mile without running out of breath. (Granted it took work on my part too... but the point is, I had previously thought it to be the domain of pure sports jocks who run all day and drink power drinks and the like.)
You're dealing with Christian fanatics and right wing psychotics. Neither of these groups would have any trouble slapping ALL content THEY find objectionable to THEMSELVES into the XXX TLD.
Problem with it is that they'll most likely automatically demand (by law, easily enough) that every ISP to block anything they don't like, the ones that don't comply will be shot in the foot in various, republican financial hamstringing type ways...
Who knows, Microsoft might petition that Slashdot and OSDL/Sourceforge/Newsforge get put in this TLD because they're "offensive" to "microsofties and minors".
Sounds far fetched, but that's what my grandparents thought about the fall of the berlin wall. (And what do you know...)
That being said, windows is just notorious for crappy code in name of ease of use (which they achieve to some extent or other but with too much tradeoff and too much cpu hunger).
I have run both BSD and Linux in various flavors. I eventually settled on Debian and Gentoo. Gentoo for home and office use and Debian OR Gentoo for servers. If I need a rock solid monster server, then its probably gentoo or bsd.
Going onto security...
Rootkits have always been a threat to admininstrators everywhere, but in windows, even spyware can autoinstall various programs, and it takes a lot of work and authorization from microshit to actually change anything in the OS without violating the EULA.
Going on from there...
In any of the OSS *nixes *nuxes or *bsd's you're free to modify or change how the system works. Nobody will sue you or void your warranty. You're also free to learn how to code to standards that microsoft later revises and creates their own incompatible and buggy versions around.
This may sound like a troll but think closely, and you'll see I'm right. It isn't the fact that an OS can have rootkits... its that in windows, almost anything can install a rootkit without antivirus or spyware proggies to stop it (and most windows IDS are clunky at best and expensive for most small shops to own or operate.)
Last of all, think about it. Everyone talks about "securing your windoze box". WHY?!?! If an average user has to go through ALL that work (in their perspective) after they paid 300 bucks for that POS, then why not download linux or buy a batch of cds from cheapbytes. Same amount of work, better results, safer system (relatively) and linux will not fall apart if you disable system services. And you don't have to waste 20 minutes on the phone if you want to reinstall the system or pay MORE just to install it on another system. It helps if you make a donation to your preferred project
PE will not teach kids how to run, how to exercise or anything except this:
Jocks are "naturally gifted" at being thugs and winning at sports, but geeks are "naturally gifted" at things that require two braincells or more actually firing electrical impulses at each other.
Get what I'm saying?
If you want them exercising, teach them properly. Teach them to avoid junk food and to use "treats" in the right amounts. Otherwise they'll eventually get lazy and become fat. Later they'll say that they were "naturally prone" to becoming fat...
That being said, a bit off topic, here's my other on topic material.
Get your kids to THINK. Exercise is good, but make sure they get to think... and yes, TV is out. I'm considering disconnecting the TV altogether once I move again. Not because it costs 60 bucks a month (that's a reason too) but because other than PBS, a few good friday shows on scifi and discovery/history/learning channels, everything else is tripe).
I think TV is a brainwashing medium, and given the options, I'd sooner have my kids join the local Linux User Group or Slashdot meetup than have them vegetating in front of a TV.
Besides, if you recall, the first quarter of the book will DEFINITELY make you laugh anytime someone says "In a Jiffy". Heh heh.
:) (I'm not saying that to linux kernel coders and people taking Operating Systems in college. You guys should already know it :)
Look it up.
I meant later on, I should've been more verbose.