TrueCrypt is a good idea if this is essentially a one-off standalone machine. Just remember that, given you're talking about Vista, take care during the TrueCrypt installation: it will default to switching the swap file off, which is a good idea in many circumstances (although unnecessary for full-disk encryption) but will kill any Vista system with 1GB RAM.
You can tell this happened to me, can't you? The Vista laptop I tried it on took about 30 minutes to boot with "only" 1GB of RAM and no swap file.;-)
The problem is Windows, and Microsoft could have fixed much of this, but decided that having an insecure OS...
I'm not convinced the problem is that it's insecure as such (which it may well be), more that patching the system AND ALL THE APPLICATIONS is so difficult. Even on a 'managed' network of Windows machines, it is extremely hard to keep all applications up-to-date, even assuming that patches for applications are available.
WSUS Updates may help if set up, but other applications all have their own update mechanisms and their own quirks.
Compare that to $RANDOM_LINUX_DESKTOP where not only is the system probably more secure by default anyway, updating is simply a matter of clicking the button to download the pending updated packages.
The only restrictions on GPL code is that you can't impose restrictions on anyone else. Can you seriously argue that you're less free because you cannot remove the freedoms of others?
I most certainly can argue that. As an example, BSD-licensed code has fewer restrictions than GPL: I could take some BSD-licensed code and use it in my own commercial application. I don't need to release my application under any particular license, I simply need to honour the terms of the BSD license, which (broadly) boils down to attribution. To clarify: with BSD, I have the freedom to do this; with GPL, I do not.
Now, I happen to think that the GPL license is a better and more ethical license than BSD, because it encourages (well, enforces) free-ness for derived works. I release code under the GPL because I want my hard work to stay free. I do this knowing that I am actually denying others the 'freedom' to close up the code into a derived work. Those who release code under a BSD-like license feel differently.
More 'free' or less 'free' is a different argument to 'good' or 'bad', or 'ethical' or 'unethical'. Good/bad and ethical/unethical are largely subjective matters. However, you can quite simply enumerate the things that you are free to do, or not, for a particular license. GPL is more restrictive than BSD in that regard. Whether GPL is 'better' than BSD is subjective.
Not quite. It strives to stay free. Most people consider BSD-licensed code to be more free than GPL-licensed code, simply because there are fewer restrictions.
I'm not commenting on whether "being more free" or "staying free" is "better" (whatever that might mean in this context), simply that there's a difference.
Yeah, because the defaults on every other piece of software are PERFECT. MySQL tries hard to maintain compatibility with older versions. It's not that outrageous to ask people to specify that they don't need backwards compatibility by turning on the strict mode.
Yes, and equally it's not that hard for people who want backwards-compatability to specify "--use-unsafe-behaviour" is it? Surely it should default to "safe".
Oh - and those Server 2008 licenses needed to run the European government computing facilities?...
Why would anyone actually need Windows 2008 Server for anything? If Microsoft's response to this fine is that European governments and government/commercial entities have to stop using Microsoft products, then I'll be dancing in the streets.
The fact that this may be the case -- the stopping use of MS products, that is, not my dancing -- almost certainly means that Microsoft won't do such a thing.
I know of one place where I worked that the CIO all but had an apoplectic seizure when she found FF was being used by some of the IT folks (fortunately, after I left). She then ordered that only IE will be used.
I'm curious: why? Just because it wasn't "approved"? Or because they had specific reasons why IE was better?
Regarding the recent loss of CDs containing data on 25 million UK people, Clarkson says: "We must go after the idiots who lost the discs and stick cocktail sticks in their eyes until they beg for mercy."
Retail end users don't upgrade operating systems, ever.
Rarely in a "walk into a shop and buy Windows In A Box of money", no. But I bet there is a moderate number of pirated upgrades. Probably more than the Walk Into A Shop variety, anyway...
It will be put to a vote to ITU member states during 2008, and if 70% agree, the leap second will be eliminated by 2013
Given that the representatives of each member state are presumably experts on chronological matters, this seems like an insane idea: making a change when 30% of experts think it's a bad idea doesn't make sense.
Given the approach he took, he could have checked for PostgreSQL and MySQL as well, which are presumably much more widespread (?) than the ones he was looking for...
> Except that it would be illegal to distribute from US servers, as well.
Why's that a problem? Just host the non-us repositories on servers outside the US. Most users of Linux distros will use their geographically-close mirrors in any case.
I like the idea where Linux distros *do* include the so-called 'restricted' attributes, such as MP3 support, and the onus is on those users who live in a software-patent-encumbered locality (such as the United States) to *remove* that support:-) In other words, re-introduce the 'non-us' repositories which are enabled by default.
Microsoft has just turned on Reduced Functionality mode, worldwide
If the fact that Vista includes client-side software to do this, which Microsoft can "turn on" at their whim, isn't enough to keep people away from Vista then I don't know what is...
In my opinion, the major factor responsible for the apparently endless "improvement" in exam grades in recent UK history is, I believe, not (necessarily) that the exams are getting easier, but that the curriculum is very strictly defined and it is getting easier for teachers to teach *the curriculum*, knowing that the exams will consist of nothing that isn't on the curriculum.
In the past, students were expected to apply a certain amount of independent thinking and "thinking outside the box" (i.e. on subjects that perhaps weren't explicitly part of the curriculum); this happens very rarely now.
The fact remains that the following two facts are contradictory:
- UK universities are complaining about students "knowing less" when they arrive; - GCSE and A Level grades are getting higher.
I don't know about most of you, but if I don't respond to an email pretty much when I get it, then I'm much more likely to forget to reply to it.
If you keep your inbox largely clear, then this shouldn't happen.
Turn email messages into "To-do" items on your To-Do list, or turn them into items on your calendar.
Replying immediately is a good idea if you are able to, of course.
Using your inbox as a To-Do list is not, generally, a good idea, although some may find it is OK.
Almost all chess programs now have an "opening library" of opening move strategies, so it's not that far to extend that library to 10-15-20-50-100 moves...
Actually it *is* a big deal to extend it: remember also that opening libraries are not necessarily *perfect* moves, they're just commonly-played and probably-OK moves. The opening book represents an incredibly small subset of all legal moves in the opening.
If one assumes approximately 50 legal moves in any position during the opening (close enough for me to make the following point), an opening book to cover all possible first 10 move pairs is going to need to contain 50^20 entries. This is *huge*. But, to include *50* move pairs, one needs 50^50 entries, which is 50^30 times *larger* than 'huge'. It *is* a big deal to try to store. I suspect you're gonna start approaching "atoms in the known universe" analogies pretty quickly...
In the late 70s and early 80s, the BBC had a (then groundbreaking) programme called "The Master Game", which did as you described: you 'heard the players thoughts as they played'. It was superb. (The actually played the games elsewhere, recorded their thoughts immediately after the game, and then replayed the game in the TV studio, in sync with their voice recordings of the moves).
WPKG - http://www.wpkg.org/ - this is a good way to deploy software under Windows (although it's best under Windows 2000 and Windows XP, I believe, at present). Basically, the software connects to a share (Windows server or Samba) at boot up and runs installer scripts.
The "list of packages to install" can be configured differently for individual PCs, if required, or for groups of PCs.
What's the legacy OS in your comment? "Unix/Linux"? Ultimately, it comes down to trust, anyway. You have to trust various users on the system and/or require certain credentials when users perform certain activities.
Installing packages in a location other than/usr/bin is fine, in theory, but in practice it makes it an awful lot harder to handle applications and their dependencies, I would think.
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TrueCrypt is a good idea if this is essentially a one-off standalone machine. Just remember that, given you're talking about Vista, take care during the TrueCrypt installation: it will default to switching the swap file off, which is a good idea in many circumstances (although unnecessary for full-disk encryption) but will kill any Vista system with 1GB RAM.
You can tell this happened to me, can't you? The Vista laptop I tried it on took about 30 minutes to boot with "only" 1GB of RAM and no swap file. ;-)
So I have my A level maths exam (core 3) in two days, taking it a year early [...]
Why not wait until next year, when the exam will be even easier? ;-)
The problem is Windows, and Microsoft could have fixed much of this, but decided that having an insecure OS...
I'm not convinced the problem is that it's insecure as such (which it may well be), more that patching the system AND ALL THE APPLICATIONS is so difficult. Even on a 'managed' network of Windows machines, it is extremely hard to keep all applications up-to-date, even assuming that patches for applications are available.
WSUS Updates may help if set up, but other applications all have their own update mechanisms and their own quirks.
Compare that to $RANDOM_LINUX_DESKTOP where not only is the system probably more secure by default anyway, updating is simply a matter of clicking the button to download the pending updated packages.
The only restrictions on GPL code is that you can't impose restrictions on anyone else. Can you seriously argue that you're less free because you cannot remove the freedoms of others?
I most certainly can argue that. As an example, BSD-licensed code has fewer restrictions than GPL: I could take some BSD-licensed code and use it in my own commercial application. I don't need to release my application under any particular license, I simply need to honour the terms of the BSD license, which (broadly) boils down to attribution. To clarify: with BSD, I have the freedom to do this; with GPL, I do not.
Now, I happen to think that the GPL license is a better and more ethical license than BSD, because it encourages (well, enforces) free-ness for derived works. I release code under the GPL because I want my hard work to stay free. I do this knowing that I am actually denying others the 'freedom' to close up the code into a derived work. Those who release code under a BSD-like license feel differently.
More 'free' or less 'free' is a different argument to 'good' or 'bad', or 'ethical' or 'unethical'. Good/bad and ethical/unethical are largely subjective matters. However, you can quite simply enumerate the things that you are free to do, or not, for a particular license. GPL is more restrictive than BSD in that regard. Whether GPL is 'better' than BSD is subjective.
[The GPL] strives to be the most free.
Not quite. It strives to stay free. Most people consider BSD-licensed code to be more free than GPL-licensed code, simply because there are fewer restrictions.
I'm not commenting on whether "being more free" or "staying free" is "better" (whatever that might mean in this context), simply that there's a difference.
Yeah, because the defaults on every other piece of software are PERFECT. MySQL tries hard to maintain compatibility with older versions. It's not that outrageous to ask people to specify that they don't need backwards compatibility by turning on the strict mode.
Yes, and equally it's not that hard for people who want backwards-compatability to specify "--use-unsafe-behaviour" is it? Surely it should default to "safe".
Oh - and those Server 2008 licenses needed to run the European government computing facilities? ...
Why would anyone actually need Windows 2008 Server for anything? If Microsoft's response to this fine is that European governments and government/commercial entities have to stop using Microsoft products, then I'll be dancing in the streets.
The fact that this may be the case -- the stopping use of MS products, that is, not my dancing -- almost certainly means that Microsoft won't do such a thing.
I haven't heard such a blatantly unbelievable set of lies since the Iraqi Information Minister was on...
A communications disruption can mean only one thing: Invasion.
I know of one place where I worked that the CIO all but had an apoplectic seizure when she found FF was being used by some of the IT folks (fortunately, after I left). She then ordered that only IE will be used.
I'm curious: why? Just because it wasn't "approved"? Or because they had specific reasons why IE was better?
Regarding the recent loss of CDs containing data on 25 million UK people, Clarkson says: "We must go after the idiots who lost the discs and stick cocktail sticks in their eyes until they beg for mercy."
Can't argue with that.
Retail end users don't upgrade operating systems, ever.
Rarely in a "walk into a shop and buy Windows In A Box of money", no. But I bet there is a moderate number of pirated upgrades. Probably more than the Walk Into A Shop variety, anyway...
Historically, there have been some 30 Februarys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_February
It will be put to a vote to ITU member states during 2008, and if 70% agree, the leap second will be eliminated by 2013
Given that the representatives of each member state are presumably experts on chronological matters, this seems like an insane idea: making a change when 30% of experts think it's a bad idea doesn't make sense.
Given the approach he took, he could have checked for PostgreSQL and MySQL as well, which are presumably much more widespread (?) than the ones he was looking for...
> Except that it would be illegal to distribute from US servers, as well.
Why's that a problem? Just host the non-us repositories on servers outside the US. Most users of Linux distros will use their geographically-close mirrors in any case.
I like the idea where Linux distros *do* include the so-called 'restricted' attributes, such as MP3 support, and the onus is on those users who live in a software-patent-encumbered locality (such as the United States) to *remove* that support :-) In other words, re-introduce the 'non-us' repositories which are enabled by default.
Microsoft has just turned on Reduced Functionality mode, worldwide
If the fact that Vista includes client-side software to do this, which Microsoft can "turn on" at their whim, isn't enough to keep people away from Vista then I don't know what is...
In my opinion, the major factor responsible for the apparently endless "improvement" in exam grades in recent UK history is, I believe, not (necessarily) that the exams are getting easier, but that the curriculum is very strictly defined and it is getting easier for teachers to teach *the curriculum*, knowing that the exams will consist of nothing that isn't on the curriculum.
In the past, students were expected to apply a certain amount of independent thinking and "thinking outside the box" (i.e. on subjects that perhaps weren't explicitly part of the curriculum); this happens very rarely now.
The fact remains that the following two facts are contradictory:
- UK universities are complaining about students "knowing less" when they arrive;
- GCSE and A Level grades are getting higher.
*Something* is wrong.
I don't know about most of you, but if I don't respond to an email pretty much when I get it, then I'm much more likely to forget to reply to it.
If you keep your inbox largely clear, then this shouldn't happen. Turn email messages into "To-do" items on your To-Do list, or turn them into items on your calendar. Replying immediately is a good idea if you are able to, of course. Using your inbox as a To-Do list is not, generally, a good idea, although some may find it is OK.I just can't believe that Microsoft think they can get away with lecturing others about open standards.
Almost all chess programs now have an "opening library" of opening move strategies, so it's not that far to extend that library to 10-15-20-50-100 moves...
Actually it *is* a big deal to extend it: remember also that opening libraries are not necessarily *perfect* moves, they're just commonly-played and probably-OK moves. The opening book represents an incredibly small subset of all legal moves in the opening.
If one assumes approximately 50 legal moves in any position during the opening (close enough for me to make the following point), an opening book to cover all possible first 10 move pairs is going to need to contain 50^20 entries. This is *huge*. But, to include *50* move pairs, one needs 50^50 entries, which is 50^30 times *larger* than 'huge'. It *is* a big deal to try to store. I suspect you're gonna start approaching "atoms in the known universe" analogies pretty quickly...
In the late 70s and early 80s, the BBC had a (then groundbreaking) programme called "The Master Game", which did as you described: you 'heard the players thoughts as they played'. It was superb. (The actually played the games elsewhere, recorded their thoughts immediately after the game, and then replayed the game in the TV studio, in sync with their voice recordings of the moves).
WPKG - http://www.wpkg.org/ - this is a good way to deploy software under Windows (although it's best under Windows 2000 and Windows XP, I believe, at present). Basically, the software connects to a share (Windows server or Samba) at boot up and runs installer scripts.
The "list of packages to install" can be configured differently for individual PCs, if required, or for groups of PCs.
What's the legacy OS in your comment? "Unix/Linux"? Ultimately, it comes down to trust, anyway. You have to trust various users on the system and/or require certain credentials when users perform certain activities.
/usr/bin is fine, in theory, but in practice it makes it an awful lot harder to handle applications and their dependencies, I would think.
Installing packages in a location other than