I've hit this with branded OEM versions of XP Media Center Edition, and I'm sure they'll do the same thing with Vista. The OS locks down hard to the motherboard model, even going to far as to require a Sony Bios on an OEM system I tried to repair.
Currently, I build machines for resale with a generic XP OEM license, and I have pretty high confidence they can be upgraded or repaired in the future with standard parts without too much problem with authorization. I do this instead of reselling OEM machines--which I can buy assembled, with comparable specs, and branded OEM versions of XP,--at the same price point. I think I am giving my customers better value with a pristine install of XP, the original media and license (instead of a Restore Disk or partition), and the ability to replace or upgrade the motherboard with something other than an identical part.
But I'm afraid Generic OEM versions of Vista will be just as hard to service as the current branded OEM versions of XP. And that's going to take a big bite out of my business, and my customers wallets.
If you actually have a meteorite in your back yard, you should carefully document it and start looking for buyers. People are getting big buck for meteorites these days, especially from Japanese collectors.
"I have been told by Microsoft staff that especially with Windows Small Business Server (*shudder*), not even a CPU upgrade is allowed by the license."
I have experienced this multiple times as well. I currently have a motherboard on order from Dell to replace a unit in a Dimension 2250 where a customer broke off the VGA connector (didn't realize it was screwed on and yanked it right off).
I have to order the replacement (a refurb with a 90 day guarantee) direct from Dell, pay $130 bucks for it with shipping, and wait at least two weeks to get it. Otherwise Product Activation will not work, and the license will be void. I am a Microsoft Partner, and have directly discussed this with a Microsoft Rep, getting it from the horse's mouth. For what I'm paying, I could have given the customer a board and processor upgrade if I wasn't locked into Dell.
On a Sony Vaio, I thought I had located an identical motherboard (it was a standard Intel board, and still pretty new--Sony's warranty had just expired). After ordering it, I discovered to my chagrin that Windows Media Center Edition (OEM) not only checked the board components--it also looked for the proprietary Sony Bios, and would not authorize without it (I confirmed this with Sony Technical Support). Microsoft refused to help, and Sony said there was nothing they could do. I tried to use their bios updater, but that checked the previous bios and refused to install. In hindsight, I regret not checking to see if the bios chip was socketed and possibly swappable.
Instead, I installed Suse Linux 10.2.
Currently, Media Center Edition is the only version of Windows XP I know of that goes so far as to require a specific bios for activation, but I would be surprised if every branded OEM version of Vista isn't going to be doing this. I would expect that getting getting a branded OEM license (which Microsoft practically gives away to major OEMs) will probably include a manufacturer-specific bios identifier. That's a win-win for both Microsoft (who gets to sell more copies of Vista to people who make the mistake of repairing their OEM licensed machines) and the OEMs, like Dell, who can lock customers into buying their premium-priced components instead of a higher value standard part.
It's a lose-lose for customers and small repair shops like mine, who have to go with mediocre, expensive OEM brand authorized service (Best Buy, anyone?) and compete with OEM branded boxes that undercut my margins by getting a basically free Windows license while I have to pay full OEM price ($25 vs. $85 currently).
Currently, this mainly impacts motherboards, but I fully expect Microsoft to continue turning the screws as they seek to fully capitalize their monopoly position.
AVGFree updates daily, and is my recommendation for antivirus for regular home users with ordinary security needs.
I turn off the scheduled morning scan (a bit overkillish, and also still slows things down too much, even in low impact mode). I set the Window Task Schedular to launch the Test Center once a week to remind folks to scan their computers and that's it.
It works just fine, and if there is a problem, it's extremely easy to uninstall it and reinstall it, whichs fixes practically everything.
I swore by Norton Antivirus until the 2004 version came out. Then I started swearing at it. Currently, I regard it as worse than nothing.
And that's where your hurdle comes in. Change is neither easy nor painless. Imagine a pain meter on a scale from 1 to 10. Let's say that Windows is a 5 and Linux or Mac is a 2. But the adjustment of switching is an 8. People will opt to stay with the 5. They know the 5. They know they can tolerate the 5. Because even though the 2 is promised, the 8 looms large in the immediate future.
I can't add anything to this post except praise. You have exactly described the barriers and inertia to moving from the Windoze platform to anything different. Ironically, the introduction of Vista, even assuming it is a vastly superior OS (big assumption), actually is an opportunity to move market share to other platforms, since the switching inertia applies to moving to either Vista or MacOS or Linux.
As the owner of a small computer shop, I am faced with this situation on a daily basis. I can't afford to build a Windows PC, because the OS license kills me. Adding completely removes any margin from a similarly equipped retail PC with a volume license ('retail' OEM 3-packs of XP cost me $80-90 per license).
What is also insidious about this situation is the tight control Microsoft puts on the hardware in a volume license. It is becoming increasingly difficult to repair a volume licensed Windows machine. Motherboard replacements have to be exact replacements, or the re-activation will fail hard, and require a long talk with Microsoft's reps--not just a short "No, I haven't installed this on any other machine, yes this is the original software." This is the current situation with Windows XP--I am certain that Vista will be an order of magnitude worse. Microsoft just last week or so agreed that owners of retail versions of Windows Vista could upgrade their machines--what kind of straitjacket do you think they have ready for their locked in Dell, HP, and e-Machines customers.
It's obvious Microsoft want customers to re-license their copy of Windows every year. While they can't make this fly in an open fashion, they're constantly pushing in this direction from the back door. Just one more reason to oppose their monopolistic practices.
Even if you're a total moron, go and vote. It helps keep the process honest.
If turnout is really low, it becomes possible to swing an election by appealing to a small special interest segment of the public. Reich-wing christianists, total gun-ban loons, total machinegun-in-every-house gun nutz, anti-hunting zealots, and total abortion banners can envision victory based on 100% turnout of their looney bases.
High turnout makes that kind of shenanegans unthinkable (though not impossible, as some statistics nerd will doubtless point out). In high turnout elections, parties will target broad sensible messages in order to capture a plurality of regular folks' votes.
So vote. Even if you're clueless. And, if you don't mind too much, spend ten minutes reading endorsements from a mainstream newspaper (you can get em' online, so as a/.er, you shouldn't find this too difficult), and avoid voting for anyone who is too d*mn crazy (I'm thinking Katherine Harris crazy here).
You, and people like you, will be doing your country a huge favor.
I agree. For myself (and my tiny business) I use Macintosh. Always have.
But my customers, who are largely casual home computer users, aren't going to learn something new. Or they're not going to pass up that Direct X only game, or that WMP-only website. So for them I have to have a solution that is easy for them to use, which provides a minimum requirement of security (their box won't get owned if they surf to the wrong website or open/download an infected email).
I always tell them when I set up their boxes that I'm making them safer, not safe. Customers with high security needs get ZoneAlarm and/or SpySweeper, and the same warning. Some of them I send away, because they want more than I can honestly provide. I don't claim to be a security guru. Offsite data backup on a regular basis is still the only truly effective protection.
Security is always a compromise between what would be perfect, and what the average customer can be expected to tolerate and maintain. The best antivirus in the world is useless if the license is expired and the definitions aren't updated. The best firewall is garbage if it blocks a site the user wants to see and they turn it off.
Something is better than nothing. And like it or not, Micro$oft is the one beast that everyone else (including Linux and Macintosh) have to learn to play well with. That's just brutish reality when I'm running a tiny computer service shop. I might like it if the world switched to Linux and Mac (I'd have a lot less business, though), but it doesn't look like it's going to do that soon. So I make the best of a crappy situation. YMMV.
I don't think Windows firewall is less secure just because a registry hack can turn it off. In order to perform that hack, malware has to be on the computer. The purpose of the Firewall is to keep malware off the computer. As long as it (and Windows Defender and a decent Antivirus program) are running on the computer, the malware won't be there.
On the other hand, third party firewalls tend to cause all kinds of problems for inexperienced users. Since Windows Firewall is ubiquitous, applications know how to play well with it (the flip side of the "all malware attacks it" scenario). Plus, if anything bad happens, you get to bitch about Micro$oft, and you'll get lots of sympathy. Who feels sorry for ZoneAlarm users these days?
It's a bonehead security vulnerability from Micro$oft (Again!), but it only affects a trivial number of users, and hasn't been exploited, probably because of the trivial number of targets. I don't think it is worth going ballistic over.
I'm a lot more worked up over the upcoming EULA restrictions coming up in Windows Vista. Looks like they're going to restrict how many times it can be reinstalled, and potentially, what kinds of upgrades they're going to allow you to make to your computer without paying for a new Vista license.
This is exactly what Iomega was selling about 10 years ago (before they cashed in with the Zip Drive). They were called Bernoulli cartridges, were the size of a small pizza box, and held about 100 megabytes of data.
They were famed for their reliability, but at the time, IBM's Winchester drive system was cheaper to license and deploy for Iomega, so their Bernoulli never got adapted to using metallic media.
Now times have caught up with the Bernoulli design. I think this is going to be huge.
I followed the link to the cruise outfit that is taking people to the North Pole aboard the Russian nuclear powred icebreaker Yamal. It was interesting, so I googled Yamal and got the Wikipedia article about the 10 nuclear powered icebreakers the Russians have built since 1957. Under "Infrastructure", they have the rather chilling entry about the contaminated nuclear fueling vessel, Lepse, which is filled with damaged fuel assemblies, highly contaminated, and constitutes a possibly greater release of radiation than Chernobyl.
A third fuel vessel, Lepse, is filled with spent nuclear fuel elements, many of them damaged and thus difficult to handle. In addition to the materials on board, the ship itself is heavily contaminated. It forms one of the world's most difficult and potentially dangerous nuclear waste disposal problems; an accident there could release more radiation then the Chernobyl catastrophe into the immediate vicinity of Murmansk. A small crew monitors the ship on a constant basis while Russia tries to raise the money and perform the research needed for safe disposal.
I can't understand why anyone would be worried by more slapdash Russian reactors floating around in the Arctic when current efforts have such a stellar record.
How about Word users learning to save documents as.RTF? All the formatting, all the crunchy font goodness, even cutesy ASCII art if they want it.
Smaller download size, doesn't give out your history, revisions and personal information to everyone on the planet, and won't spread macro viruses.
And every word processing program written in the last 10 years will open it without any problems or loss of content. All it takes is selecting "Save as" from the file menu when you're ready to post it.
Friends don't send friends files in native format for any document that is intended for wide distribution. If you're unaware of the availability of of.RTF for Word documents, you need to take some basic computer courses.
And what if your MoBo died? Will it be a problem replacing it with another copy of the same board? You should not have to activate this product everytime your system changes. Defeating piracy is one thing, but causing a lot of headache and issues for paying customers is not. In the end, they will only hurt the paying customers, since the hackers will defeat whatever stupid system they come up with anyway.
Already is.
WinXP Home OEM won't validate if you replace a motherboard with any other than the exact OEM part. I've had to deal with this several times now, and it has involved long conversations with Microsoft reps, who cheerfully inform me that legally, the license for Windows OEM needs to be renewed (i.e. buy another copy of Windows) if you replace a part as important as the motherboard.
Since for some computers, duplicate OEM motherboards are not available at any price, this creates a very sticky situation. So far, I've been able, as a Microsoft Partner, to jawbone the reps into eventually providing a validation code that works. But it isn't an easy or pleasant process.
It's clear to me that this is where Microsoft wants to go with licensing of Windows, at least for OEM stuff. Licensed directly to the parts in the box at time of installation. Any changes result in a renewal fee. This is part of the process of changing the overall license model from ownership to leasing. Microsoft wants a steady income stream from Windows, and is sick of having to keep updating its software to get it. They just want the customer to keep paying on a yearly basis for the same thing.
With the problems I've already experienced with Windows XP Home OEM, I am very nervous about what we'll be seeing with Vista. I'm afraid they're going to make it impossible for me, a small Handyman shop, to do equipment upgrades for people, because I won't be able to afford to tack on the licensing fees and stay competitive with the national outfits that buy volume licenses and slap them onboard cheaply, while us little guys are forced to buy them at or near retail.
Cheats are ubiquitous these days. So if he finds a certain puzzle maddening, why not get the solution online and move on? It doesn't make him a loser or anything, as long as he is doing most of the game on his own.
Whenever I play a game, there are usually one or two things I just don't get, usually due to having an overly realistic point of view regarding RPG realities (if Lara dives into that icy water just wearing her Daisy Dukes and a skimpy tee-shirt, she'll be incapacitated in 90 seconds and dead in 20 minutes!) Rather than get bent out of shape on those, I just look them up and move along. I end up solving at least 90% of the puzzles myself, and I don't get all wired and crazy with frustration.
The guy should just get a life and move on. We're talking about stupid video games here.
You know, as a programmer, I get really tired of people suggesting ways to program computers "without doing any coding". That's where BAD things come from. That's where "dynamically hiding menu items" come from, so you never know where things are. That's where "visual programming" comes from, so you're staring at a screen full of boxes and lines with little to no organizational structure.
This is dead on. I have felt this way ever since the Macintosh moved away from simple drop-down menus on the top of the screen to the "richer" completely graphical content (I really liked the mouse, though). Multiple metaphors just muddy the water. Better to put all the controls in one spot and keep the same conventions. Then users only have to learn the system once.
The worst current examples are the varied media players and photo organizers, none of which have anything in common with each other except excessive gimcrackery. I frequently have trouble figuring out how do get the d*mn things to simply shut down, much less selecting an individual track and adjusting the volume.
Unfortunately, there is a marketing interest in breaking standards and creating unique methods of interfacing with programs and features. Once a customer is trained in how to do things one way, they don't want to make the effort to learn something completely different. Customer loyalty through mental fatigue. This explains why so many killer apps feature simple and intuitive controls when they debut, but quickly evolve into feature-bloated labyrinths of obtuse buttons and obscure functions. Gotta lock in that market share, baby!
If I recall correctly, Heroin was originally designed the same way, or at least to help people get off of a morphine addiction.
Absolutely. And Methodone already exists to take care of the withdrawel symptoms. That hasn't had any effect on the true addictiveness of Heroin, Morphine and other opiates. They're addictive because make you feel good. If they stop making you feel good, they're not nearly as effective (Morphine is not actually very effective in reducing pain--it just makes the pain much more easy to tolerate).
But who am I to take issue with more drugs? Go Australia!
]And how will that help? If a user is willing to click to run untrusted programs, he is willing to type a password to do so. This will only help in cases where a user does not have the priviledge to install programs
Untrue. This also helps greatly in cases where a trojan horse is masquerading as a.jpg or smileys. or text attachment. It gives a user a chance to say "Hey, that's not my Aunt Clara's new car--I don't want to do that!" A lot of victims click "open" or "OK" once without thinking and then have second thoughts.
Every bit of barrier to infection is valuable. Malware that can't propagate loses its reason for existing. A good OS gives its operator a second chance. Otherwise, what is the Undo key for?
I have a customer's machine in my shop right now. It is a Gateway tower with a Pentium 4. It is running the factory-installed copy of Windows XP, for which there is a completely legitimate COA sticker pasted on the back of it (in a special plastic indent created by Gateway just for this sticker).
I have checked the version info of XP in the My Computer properties, and it not only matches the version type (XP Home) and date, it also has the text underneath stating it was the original factory install from Gateway. This is the legal copy of Windows XP Home that shipped with this machine.
But not according the Windows Genuine Advantage. According to WGA, this is a pirated copy, and there is nothing obvious that I can do about it, short of completely reinstaling Windows (which it appears I will have to do).
Granted, this machine has been damaged by a virus infestation, which is now cleaned off. But a lot of computers get attacked by viruses. If Micro$oft decides to start shutting these machines down, instead of just shutting them off from security patches, then they're going to be defrauding a lot of their legal customers. The viruses, identified by AVG, were "Trojan Horse Generic.YRZ", "Trojan Horse Generic.APU" and "Exploit.MS04-011". All identified as being used to download other malware, which has also been removed, probably by the customer before I saw the machine.
Yes, the deficit is rising and the gov't is spending more for craptastic social programs.
The Medicare drug program is only craptastic because the Republicans and the drug companies designed it that way. Medicare as it stood previously is extremely efficient, especially when compared to private insurance. The Medicare drug program, if designed along the model of the existing VA drug benefit, could have also been an extremely efficient way of delivering affordable prescription drugs for our elderly. However, the Republicans didn't use the VA model.
Instead, we have a massively complex, massively redundant bureaucracy of scores of different private plans that cannot negotiate with drug companies for discounts on a national level. The redundancy insures that multiple people are being paid to do the same thing, which drives up costs. And each of these plans is a for-profit enterprise, so there is the added cost of paying a cut to the owners. This is a certain recipe for a craptastic, expensive, ineffective program.
Thank you pResident Bush JR, thank you Republican Congress!
Military spending is still ~4% GDP, so I really don't have a problem with that.
I wouldn't have a problem with that either, except that the cost of the Iraq Conquest and Occupation isn't considered part of the military budget. $70 billion here, 80 billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money. And the eventual costs of taking long term care of the wounded and traumatized will be on the VA budget, so you can lump that into the costs of social services when you complain about welfare spending. There is also the hidden cost of replacing the equipment we're wearing out at record rates, which won't start hitting hard until after 2006.
Of course, I don't have a problem with our gov't safeguarding us and preventing another 3,000 of our citizens from being killed by terrorists,
Over 2500 of our soldiers are dead. ~10,000 more are horribly wounded, and would have been dead in any other conflict, including Gulf War I. Why do you hate our troops so much that you don't even consider them citizens?
And if this action had made us safer, we wouldn't be taking our shoes off in airports, having our private calls logged by the NSA, our library records scrutinized, etc., etc., etc.,. If "safety" is so important to you, why not just hold up a liquor store and get put in jail. Your ass will be safe there (well, maybe not your ass, but the rest of you, anyway. You even get free prescription drugs!)
but I guess I'm not blinded by hatred of our President.
Blinded by the sight of his bulging codpiece on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln instead, I guess. That was his diaper, dude!
Win at all costs, that's the mantra of the Kossacks, isn't it?
I'm not a Kossack, though I have followed links to topics on Daily Kos now and then. I'm not sure they have a motto. They do seem to argue with each other almost as vociferously as the Democrats. I never considered diversity of opinion to be a win at all costs strategery. In context, George Bush JR and Karl Rove seem to have a pretty exclusive copyright on the win-at-all-costs attitude.
Under the system, consumer service personnel received bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars if they could successfully dissuade or "save" half of the people who called to cancel service. For several years, AOL had instituted minimum retention or "save" percentages, which consumer representatives were expected to meet. These bonuses, and the minimum "save" rates accompanying them, had the effect of employees not honoring cancellations, or otherwise making cancellation unduly difficult for consumers.
So AOL's 'apology' to Vincent was pretty hypocritical, considering they are paying people bonuses to act in precisely that manner when people call to try and cancel. The way they've set up their payment system makes this behavior inevitable.
We had a service call to setup a new Dell computer. Customer had activated McAffee. My employee was out on the install, and called to tell me that McAffee could not be uninstalled. He said it wanted a CD (not provided) in order to complete the install. He said he had talked to Dell support and they were next day mailing the CD to the customer in order to let them uninstall McAffee.
I hope I'm not paying a guy who is so dumb he can't figure out to shut off a service in order to uninstall a program. This happened within the last month, and it's the first time I had heard of it. Both of us had uninstalled McAffee many previous times without a hitch other than damaged uninstallers. The message to uninstall VirusScan first is a routine one. I'm also surprised Dell support is so dumb that they can't tell a tech to boot into Safe Mode to uninstall (although, right now I am remembering that the Norton uninstaller will not run in Safe Mode).
Right now, I still believe that the version of McAffee currently shipping with Dell Computer refuses to uninstall itself without the CD, which is not included with the computer. I think the people who have the helpful advice are giving it based on older or unactivated versions of the software.
I agree with the thread author that this situation is bordering on criminal, and should certainly carry civil liability.
They already stopped painting the foam because it saved a couple of hundred pounds of weight. Pallet wrap would for something as big as the shuttle would weigh how many times as much as paint?
Since a lot of the problem is woodpeckers and other birds burrowing into that lovely foam material for shelter, they might be better off spraying the outside with some cayenne-based critter repellent.
Slashdot Mirror
I've hit this with branded OEM versions of XP Media Center Edition, and I'm sure they'll do the same thing with Vista. The OS locks down hard to the motherboard model, even going to far as to require a Sony Bios on an OEM system I tried to repair.
Currently, I build machines for resale with a generic XP OEM license, and I have pretty high confidence they can be upgraded or repaired in the future with standard parts without too much problem with authorization. I do this instead of reselling OEM machines--which I can buy assembled, with comparable specs, and branded OEM versions of XP,--at the same price point. I think I am giving my customers better value with a pristine install of XP, the original media and license (instead of a Restore Disk or partition), and the ability to replace or upgrade the motherboard with something other than an identical part.
But I'm afraid Generic OEM versions of Vista will be just as hard to service as the current branded OEM versions of XP. And that's going to take a big bite out of my business, and my customers wallets.
If you actually have a meteorite in your back yard, you should carefully document it and start looking for buyers. People are getting big buck for meteorites these days, especially from Japanese collectors.
"I have been told by Microsoft staff that especially with Windows Small Business Server (*shudder*), not even a CPU upgrade is allowed by the license."
I have experienced this multiple times as well. I currently have a motherboard on order from Dell to replace a unit in a Dimension 2250 where a customer broke off the VGA connector (didn't realize it was screwed on and yanked it right off).
I have to order the replacement (a refurb with a 90 day guarantee) direct from Dell, pay $130 bucks for it with shipping, and wait at least two weeks to get it. Otherwise Product Activation will not work, and the license will be void. I am a Microsoft Partner, and have directly discussed this with a Microsoft Rep, getting it from the horse's mouth. For what I'm paying, I could have given the customer a board and processor upgrade if I wasn't locked into Dell.
On a Sony Vaio, I thought I had located an identical motherboard (it was a standard Intel board, and still pretty new--Sony's warranty had just expired). After ordering it, I discovered to my chagrin that Windows Media Center Edition (OEM) not only checked the board components--it also looked for the proprietary Sony Bios, and would not authorize without it (I confirmed this with Sony Technical Support). Microsoft refused to help, and Sony said there was nothing they could do. I tried to use their bios updater, but that checked the previous bios and refused to install. In hindsight, I regret not checking to see if the bios chip was socketed and possibly swappable.
Instead, I installed Suse Linux 10.2.
Currently, Media Center Edition is the only version of Windows XP I know of that goes so far as to require a specific bios for activation, but I would be surprised if every branded OEM version of Vista isn't going to be doing this. I would expect that getting getting a branded OEM license (which Microsoft practically gives away to major OEMs) will probably include a manufacturer-specific bios identifier. That's a win-win for both Microsoft (who gets to sell more copies of Vista to people who make the mistake of repairing their OEM licensed machines) and the OEMs, like Dell, who can lock customers into buying their premium-priced components instead of a higher value standard part.
It's a lose-lose for customers and small repair shops like mine, who have to go with mediocre, expensive OEM brand authorized service (Best Buy, anyone?) and compete with OEM branded boxes that undercut my margins by getting a basically free Windows license while I have to pay full OEM price ($25 vs. $85 currently).
Currently, this mainly impacts motherboards, but I fully expect Microsoft to continue turning the screws as they seek to fully capitalize their monopoly position.
AVGFree updates daily, and is my recommendation for antivirus for regular home users with ordinary security needs.
I turn off the scheduled morning scan (a bit overkillish, and also still slows things down too much, even in low impact mode). I set the Window Task Schedular to launch the Test Center once a week to remind folks to scan their computers and that's it.
It works just fine, and if there is a problem, it's extremely easy to uninstall it and reinstall it, whichs fixes practically everything.
I swore by Norton Antivirus until the 2004 version came out. Then I started swearing at it. Currently, I regard it as worse than nothing.
- And that's where your hurdle comes in. Change is neither easy nor painless. Imagine a pain meter on a scale from 1 to 10. Let's say that Windows is a 5 and Linux or Mac is a 2. But the adjustment of switching is an 8. People will opt to stay with the 5. They know the 5. They know they can tolerate the 5. Because even though the 2 is promised, the 8 looms large in the immediate future.
I can't add anything to this post except praise. You have exactly described the barriers and inertia to moving from the Windoze platform to anything different. Ironically, the introduction of Vista, even assuming it is a vastly superior OS (big assumption), actually is an opportunity to move market share to other platforms, since the switching inertia applies to moving to either Vista or MacOS or Linux.What a world, eh?
Probably for the same reason security updates to MSN Messenger turn it back on by default when Windows starts.
Because Microsoft is a greedy monopoly and they'll make you use their garbage whether you want to or not. Competition is for the rabble.
As if a programmer ever managed to get screwed!
Sexually, that is...
As the owner of a small computer shop, I am faced with this situation on a daily basis. I can't afford to build a Windows PC, because the OS license kills me. Adding completely removes any margin from a similarly equipped retail PC with a volume license ('retail' OEM 3-packs of XP cost me $80-90 per license).
What is also insidious about this situation is the tight control Microsoft puts on the hardware in a volume license. It is becoming increasingly difficult to repair a volume licensed Windows machine. Motherboard replacements have to be exact replacements, or the re-activation will fail hard, and require a long talk with Microsoft's reps--not just a short "No, I haven't installed this on any other machine, yes this is the original software." This is the current situation with Windows XP--I am certain that Vista will be an order of magnitude worse. Microsoft just last week or so agreed that owners of retail versions of Windows Vista could upgrade their machines--what kind of straitjacket do you think they have ready for their locked in Dell, HP, and e-Machines customers.
It's obvious Microsoft want customers to re-license their copy of Windows every year. While they can't make this fly in an open fashion, they're constantly pushing in this direction from the back door. Just one more reason to oppose their monopolistic practices.
Even if you're a total moron, go and vote. It helps keep the process honest.
/.er, you shouldn't find this too difficult), and avoid voting for anyone who is too d*mn crazy (I'm thinking Katherine Harris crazy here).
If turnout is really low, it becomes possible to swing an election by appealing to a small special interest segment of the public. Reich-wing christianists, total gun-ban loons, total machinegun-in-every-house gun nutz, anti-hunting zealots, and total abortion banners can envision victory based on 100% turnout of their looney bases.
High turnout makes that kind of shenanegans unthinkable (though not impossible, as some statistics nerd will doubtless point out). In high turnout elections, parties will target broad sensible messages in order to capture a plurality of regular folks' votes.
So vote. Even if you're clueless. And, if you don't mind too much, spend ten minutes reading endorsements from a mainstream newspaper (you can get em' online, so as a
You, and people like you, will be doing your country a huge favor.
I agree. For myself (and my tiny business) I use Macintosh. Always have.
But my customers, who are largely casual home computer users, aren't going to learn something new. Or they're not going to pass up that Direct X only game, or that WMP-only website. So for them I have to have a solution that is easy for them to use, which provides a minimum requirement of security (their box won't get owned if they surf to the wrong website or open/download an infected email).
I always tell them when I set up their boxes that I'm making them safer, not safe. Customers with high security needs get ZoneAlarm and/or SpySweeper, and the same warning. Some of them I send away, because they want more than I can honestly provide. I don't claim to be a security guru. Offsite data backup on a regular basis is still the only truly effective protection.
Security is always a compromise between what would be perfect, and what the average customer can be expected to tolerate and maintain. The best antivirus in the world is useless if the license is expired and the definitions aren't updated. The best firewall is garbage if it blocks a site the user wants to see and they turn it off.
Something is better than nothing. And like it or not, Micro$oft is the one beast that everyone else (including Linux and Macintosh) have to learn to play well with. That's just brutish reality when I'm running a tiny computer service shop. I might like it if the world switched to Linux and Mac (I'd have a lot less business, though), but it doesn't look like it's going to do that soon. So I make the best of a crappy situation. YMMV.
Cheers.
I don't think Windows firewall is less secure just because a registry hack can turn it off. In order to perform that hack, malware has to be on the computer. The purpose of the Firewall is to keep malware off the computer. As long as it (and Windows Defender and a decent Antivirus program) are running on the computer, the malware won't be there.
On the other hand, third party firewalls tend to cause all kinds of problems for inexperienced users. Since Windows Firewall is ubiquitous, applications know how to play well with it (the flip side of the "all malware attacks it" scenario). Plus, if anything bad happens, you get to bitch about Micro$oft, and you'll get lots of sympathy. Who feels sorry for ZoneAlarm users these days?
It's a bonehead security vulnerability from Micro$oft (Again!), but it only affects a trivial number of users, and hasn't been exploited, probably because of the trivial number of targets. I don't think it is worth going ballistic over.
I'm a lot more worked up over the upcoming EULA restrictions coming up in Windows Vista. Looks like they're going to restrict how many times it can be reinstalled, and potentially, what kinds of upgrades they're going to allow you to make to your computer without paying for a new Vista license.
This is exactly what Iomega was selling about 10 years ago (before they cashed in with the Zip Drive). They were called Bernoulli cartridges, were the size of a small pizza box, and held about 100 megabytes of data.
They were famed for their reliability, but at the time, IBM's Winchester drive system was cheaper to license and deploy for Iomega, so their Bernoulli never got adapted to using metallic media.
Now times have caught up with the Bernoulli design. I think this is going to be huge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_powered_iceb
- A third fuel vessel, Lepse, is filled with spent nuclear fuel elements, many of them damaged and thus difficult to handle. In addition to the materials on board, the ship itself is heavily contaminated. It forms one of the world's most difficult and potentially dangerous nuclear waste disposal problems; an accident there could release more radiation then the Chernobyl catastrophe into the immediate vicinity of Murmansk. A small crew monitors the ship on a constant basis while Russia tries to raise the money and perform the research needed for safe disposal.
I can't understand why anyone would be worried by more slapdash Russian reactors floating around in the Arctic when current efforts have such a stellar record.How about Word users learning to save documents as .RTF? All the formatting, all the crunchy font goodness, even cutesy ASCII art if they want it.
.RTF for Word documents, you need to take some basic computer courses.
Smaller download size, doesn't give out your history, revisions and personal information to everyone on the planet, and won't spread macro viruses.
And every word processing program written in the last 10 years will open it without any problems or loss of content. All it takes is selecting "Save as" from the file menu when you're ready to post it.
Friends don't send friends files in native format for any document that is intended for wide distribution. If you're unaware of the availability of of
- And what if your MoBo died? Will it be a problem replacing it with another copy of the same board? You should not have to activate this product everytime your system changes. Defeating piracy is one thing, but causing a lot of headache and issues for paying customers is not. In the end, they will only hurt the paying customers, since the hackers will defeat whatever stupid system they come up with anyway.
Already is.WinXP Home OEM won't validate if you replace a motherboard with any other than the exact OEM part. I've had to deal with this several times now, and it has involved long conversations with Microsoft reps, who cheerfully inform me that legally, the license for Windows OEM needs to be renewed (i.e. buy another copy of Windows) if you replace a part as important as the motherboard.
Since for some computers, duplicate OEM motherboards are not available at any price, this creates a very sticky situation. So far, I've been able, as a Microsoft Partner, to jawbone the reps into eventually providing a validation code that works. But it isn't an easy or pleasant process.
It's clear to me that this is where Microsoft wants to go with licensing of Windows, at least for OEM stuff. Licensed directly to the parts in the box at time of installation. Any changes result in a renewal fee. This is part of the process of changing the overall license model from ownership to leasing. Microsoft wants a steady income stream from Windows, and is sick of having to keep updating its software to get it. They just want the customer to keep paying on a yearly basis for the same thing.
With the problems I've already experienced with Windows XP Home OEM, I am very nervous about what we'll be seeing with Vista. I'm afraid they're going to make it impossible for me, a small Handyman shop, to do equipment upgrades for people, because I won't be able to afford to tack on the licensing fees and stay competitive with the national outfits that buy volume licenses and slap them onboard cheaply, while us little guys are forced to buy them at or near retail.
Dell and Microsoft win, everybody else loses...
This is true. Everything bad isn't Bush's fault. He just made EVERYTHING bad worse...
Cheats are ubiquitous these days. So if he finds a certain puzzle maddening, why not get the solution online and move on? It doesn't make him a loser or anything, as long as he is doing most of the game on his own.
Whenever I play a game, there are usually one or two things I just don't get, usually due to having an overly realistic point of view regarding RPG realities (if Lara dives into that icy water just wearing her Daisy Dukes and a skimpy tee-shirt, she'll be incapacitated in 90 seconds and dead in 20 minutes!) Rather than get bent out of shape on those, I just look them up and move along. I end up solving at least 90% of the puzzles myself, and I don't get all wired and crazy with frustration.
The guy should just get a life and move on. We're talking about stupid video games here.
- You know, as a programmer, I get really tired of people suggesting ways to program computers "without doing any coding". That's where BAD things come from. That's where "dynamically hiding menu items" come from, so you never know where things are. That's where "visual programming" comes from, so you're staring at a screen full of boxes and lines with little to no organizational structure.
This is dead on. I have felt this way ever since the Macintosh moved away from simple drop-down menus on the top of the screen to the "richer" completely graphical content (I really liked the mouse, though). Multiple metaphors just muddy the water. Better to put all the controls in one spot and keep the same conventions. Then users only have to learn the system once.The worst current examples are the varied media players and photo organizers, none of which have anything in common with each other except excessive gimcrackery. I frequently have trouble figuring out how do get the d*mn things to simply shut down, much less selecting an individual track and adjusting the volume.
Unfortunately, there is a marketing interest in breaking standards and creating unique methods of interfacing with programs and features. Once a customer is trained in how to do things one way, they don't want to make the effort to learn something completely different. Customer loyalty through mental fatigue. This explains why so many killer apps feature simple and intuitive controls when they debut, but quickly evolve into feature-bloated labyrinths of obtuse buttons and obscure functions. Gotta lock in that market share, baby!
- If I recall correctly, Heroin was originally designed the same way, or at least to help people get off of a morphine addiction.
Absolutely. And Methodone already exists to take care of the withdrawel symptoms. That hasn't had any effect on the true addictiveness of Heroin, Morphine and other opiates. They're addictive because make you feel good. If they stop making you feel good, they're not nearly as effective (Morphine is not actually very effective in reducing pain--it just makes the pain much more easy to tolerate).But who am I to take issue with more drugs? Go Australia!
]And how will that help? If a user is willing to click to run untrusted programs, he is willing to type a password to do so. This will only help in cases where a user does not have the priviledge to install programs
.jpg or smileys. or text attachment. It gives a user a chance to say "Hey, that's not my Aunt Clara's new car--I don't want to do that!" A lot of victims click "open" or "OK" once without thinking and then have second thoughts.
Untrue. This also helps greatly in cases where a trojan horse is masquerading as a
Every bit of barrier to infection is valuable. Malware that can't propagate loses its reason for existing. A good OS gives its operator a second chance. Otherwise, what is the Undo key for?
I have a customer's machine in my shop right now. It is a Gateway tower with a Pentium 4. It is running the factory-installed copy of Windows XP, for which there is a completely legitimate COA sticker pasted on the back of it (in a special plastic indent created by Gateway just for this sticker).
I have checked the version info of XP in the My Computer properties, and it not only matches the version type (XP Home) and date, it also has the text underneath stating it was the original factory install from Gateway. This is the legal copy of Windows XP Home that shipped with this machine.
But not according the Windows Genuine Advantage. According to WGA, this is a pirated copy, and there is nothing obvious that I can do about it, short of completely reinstaling Windows (which it appears I will have to do).
Granted, this machine has been damaged by a virus infestation, which is now cleaned off. But a lot of computers get attacked by viruses. If Micro$oft decides to start shutting these machines down, instead of just shutting them off from security patches, then they're going to be defrauding a lot of their legal customers. The viruses, identified by AVG, were "Trojan Horse Generic.YRZ", "Trojan Horse Generic.APU" and "Exploit.MS04-011". All identified as being used to download other malware, which has also been removed, probably by the customer before I saw the machine.
I smell class action suit.
Instead, we have a massively complex, massively redundant bureaucracy of scores of different private plans that cannot negotiate with drug companies for discounts on a national level. The redundancy insures that multiple people are being paid to do the same thing, which drives up costs. And each of these plans is a for-profit enterprise, so there is the added cost of paying a cut to the owners. This is a certain recipe for a craptastic, expensive, ineffective program.
Thank you pResident Bush JR, thank you Republican Congress!
I wouldn't have a problem with that either, except that the cost of the Iraq Conquest and Occupation isn't considered part of the military budget. $70 billion here, 80 billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money. And the eventual costs of taking long term care of the wounded and traumatized will be on the VA budget, so you can lump that into the costs of social services when you complain about welfare spending. There is also the hidden cost of replacing the equipment we're wearing out at record rates, which won't start hitting hard until after 2006.
Over 2500 of our soldiers are dead. ~10,000 more are horribly wounded, and would have been dead in any other conflict, including Gulf War I. Why do you hate our troops so much that you don't even consider them citizens?
And if this action had made us safer, we wouldn't be taking our shoes off in airports, having our private calls logged by the NSA, our library records scrutinized, etc., etc., etc.,. If "safety" is so important to you, why not just hold up a liquor store and get put in jail. Your ass will be safe there (well, maybe not your ass, but the rest of you, anyway. You even get free prescription drugs!)
Blinded by the sight of his bulging codpiece on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln instead, I guess. That was his diaper, dude!
I'm not a Kossack, though I have followed links to topics on Daily Kos now and then. I'm not sure they have a motto. They do seem to argue with each other almost as vociferously as the Democrats. I never considered diversity of opinion to be a win at all costs strategery. In context, George Bush JR and Karl Rove seem to have a pretty exclusive copyright on the win-at-all-costs attitude.
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2005/aug/aug24a_
So AOL's 'apology' to Vincent was pretty hypocritical, considering they are paying people bonuses to act in precisely that manner when people call to try and cancel. The way they've set up their payment system makes this behavior inevitable.
I run a small computer service shop.
We had a service call to setup a new Dell computer. Customer had activated McAffee. My employee was out on the install, and called to tell me that McAffee could not be uninstalled. He said it wanted a CD (not provided) in order to complete the install. He said he had talked to Dell support and they were next day mailing the CD to the customer in order to let them uninstall McAffee.
I hope I'm not paying a guy who is so dumb he can't figure out to shut off a service in order to uninstall a program. This happened within the last month, and it's the first time I had heard of it. Both of us had uninstalled McAffee many previous times without a hitch other than damaged uninstallers. The message to uninstall VirusScan first is a routine one. I'm also surprised Dell support is so dumb that they can't tell a tech to boot into Safe Mode to uninstall (although, right now I am remembering that the Norton uninstaller will not run in Safe Mode).
Right now, I still believe that the version of McAffee currently shipping with Dell Computer refuses to uninstall itself without the CD, which is not included with the computer. I think the people who have the helpful advice are giving it based on older or unactivated versions of the software.
I agree with the thread author that this situation is bordering on criminal, and should certainly carry civil liability.
They already stopped painting the foam because it saved a couple of hundred pounds of weight. Pallet wrap would for something as big as the shuttle would weigh how many times as much as paint?
Since a lot of the problem is woodpeckers and other birds burrowing into that lovely foam material for shelter, they might be better off spraying the outside with some cayenne-based critter repellent.