requires that you completely trust the software that is electronically "shuffling" the cards not to cheat. Why would any sensible person make that assumption?
I'm not saying I don't know how to reference the folder. I'm just making a point.
I think it's f**ked that Windows changes the names of folders depending on who
you are logged in as.
Why should one even have to think about what the name is? What's
wrong with using the actual name?
There seems to be a philosophy in Windows that hiding details from users
makes things simpler. Let's not show them the real name of a folder. Let's
not show the extensions on file names (by default). I assert that such obfuscation
makes things more difficult, not simpler.
One thing that astounds and frustrates me is not just that MS insists on silly
names like "My Documents", but that they change the name of
the
folders depending on who is looking at them!
For example, if I set up a policy to redirect Joe's "My Documents" folder
to a server, the folder name appears as "My Documents" to Joe, but
as "Joe's Documents" to others (such as Administrator).
Now try writing a script that references that folder. What name do you use?
is in the Explorer tweaking section. It is absolutely insane that Windows still hides file extensions by default. I never install a system without going to Tools, Folder Options, View and disabling "Hide extensions for known file types". Otherwise Explorer won't show you the difference between "clickme.txt" and "clickme.txt.exe".
Also, on the subject of drive partitioning, I would caution against any partitioning scheme that results in the drive heads doing long seeks between one partition and another. This is the slowest operation that any drive performs. For example, if you create a 50 Gb primary partition followed by a 10 Gb scratch partition, the heads could easily require 75% of an end-to-end seek just to get to the second partition. A drive with an 8.5 ms seek time refers to average seek time. Try finding the spec for an end-to-end seek - it's a LOT longer than the average.
The detailed Q&A mentioned in the article covers
your question about viruses
abusing the system:
I would add to this that,in general, good guys would not require keeping
a very high balance in their escrow account. If a typical bond cost $0.10 as
suggested, you would not need to risk more than one or two dollars in your
escrow account unless you habitually send e-mail to unscrupulous recipients
who claim your bond without justification.
Yes, a successful virus writer could get rich by stealing one dollar from
each of a million targets, but would you not want to take part in a system
that could hugely improve that quality and value of communications you receive,
merely by risking a dollar or two in escrow?
Also, if your escrow account gets raided, it would not mean that you
can't send email anymore. All of your friends would presumably have whitelisted
you and would allow your messages through without invoking the bond mechanism.
Thanks for the tip. I didn't bother searching VMWare's website for an updated build because I have a "Check for Updates on the Web" menu selection that tells me "No new VMWare Workstation updates are available".
Trying to install from the ISO under VMWare 4.5.1 Build 7568... at the point where YAST initializes the display splits into 4 quarters and becomes nearly impossible to make out...
Firstly, what makes you think I don't respect her?
Secondly, an offhand comment pertaining to my wife without even identifying her is not likely to turn my wife into and ex-wife. Nor would her reading my comment. It was a simple statement of fact with which she would agree.
WTF are you talking about? I have a wife of 18 years who cooks everyday (in addition to working), cleans house, does all the shopping, irons when necessary and blows whenever I want. Try marrying someone who actually cares about you. That's kinda the whole point.
Re:Blame it on Linksys
on
The 3Com Saga
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I disagree with your glowing commendation of everything LinkSys. These are the geniuses who's early model DSL routers would reveal the login password by clicking on "View Source" at the login page.
With my first LinkSys DSL router I found that Internet traffic
would inevitably become sluggish or just stop working after several days
of heavy use and would not behave normally until I cycled the power. When I
mentioned this to a friend he told me that he had two LinkSys routers
at his office plugged into lamp timers so they cycled power every night. I
took it as a joke until I visited his office one day and saw the timers attached
to the wall beside the routers!
I moved up to a newer LinkSys router to support a couple of laptops via wireless
connection. The range was weak and connections would frequently drop when both
laptops were used simultaneously.
I found that for what I do from the couch (watch TV, videos, DVD's, listen to music) I never used the keyboard after a few days of playing around. Even on a 21" monitor the fonts are too small to read from far away, especially at higher screen resolutions.
What I DO use all the time is the RF remote that was bundled with my ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500DV video card. (Not the latest model but the remote device is similar with newer models). This little gem has great range, works as a wireless mouse from my couch, has buttons to start & control the TV/DVD app's, control music playback from MP3's or CD's and programmable buttons for just about anything else.
For stuff that requires a keyboard, such as web surfing, I prefer to put a chair in front of the screen and use a conventional keyboard. Unlike watching movies and listening to music, you will find that viewing web pages is not good from 10 feet away.
The guy who wrote this is a typical clueless idiot who can't keep a computer
running and blames something else for his problems.
In this case he blames two things - Windows Update and the Windows registry.
Let's consider arguments from the perspective of HAVING A BRAIN:
First things first: Yes, it is problematic to patch a vulnerability via the
network if a worm that exploits that vulnerability is attacking you while you're
trying to patch, but this problem is not specific to Windows Update and his
hardly a reason to condemn it. I have seen Windows Update (along with critical
update notification) used by the most technically inept people and have been surprised
when checking their computers to find that they were actually patched up to
date. Windows Update does not solve every security problem (such as the time
lag between vulnerabilities becoming known and patches becoming available)
but it's infinitely better than the old days when software updates had to be
physically distributed.
As for the writer's second point about Windows Update working together with
the Windows Registry to deprive Windows Users of all protection, he
offers no specifics about this alleged connection. He simply makes the vague
statements that pretty quickly the registry started accumulating all
sorts of rubbish and eventually, the Windows registry accumulates
so much crud that the user is forced to do a clean install.
Yes, it is possible to accumulate crud in the registry. This is not reason
to blame the Microsoft employees behind the design of Windows Registry.
What makes a mess of the registry is the crud that YOU PUT INTO IT. In my
experience using good quality software from reputable sources causes relatively
few real problems. On other hand, if you go around downloading all
kinds of applications that you know little about only to find out that the
product I downloaded turned out to be some pathetic crippleware, should
you blame this on Microsoft?
There are times when a registry cleaner might help, but these tools should
be used with utmost caution and require a deep understanding of what you are
doing. Used stupidly, you just might find that the next time I rebooted,
Windows refused to load. Gee, what a surprise.
I have two pieces of advice for the opinionated twit that wrote this slanted
diatribe:
1) Next time you are considering placing an unpatched system on the Internet
to download patches, put it behind a dirt-cheap LinkSys|D-LInk|SMC router.
It would have saved you a lot of pain.
2) Next time you are thinking about trying out unknown software or taking
a chainsaw to the Windows Registry, DO A FRIGGING BACKUP FIRST YOU
MORON. Then
you might not have to moan about being forced to do a clean install.
Solar cells would not be necessary to power LED's.
on
Road Marker Marks You
·
· Score: 1
If your road marker could depress when driven over and spring back into place, you could use the force of the car pushing it down to charge a battery. This would assume that the marker gets driven over fairly regularly but has the advantage of working at night or in low light areas.
I believe many road markers already the action of a car driving over them to wipe the lense clean.
Either way, the point is that only the ISP knows who the IP or MAC address is being used by, and the courts have just ruled that they do not need to hand over that information.
The majority of subscribers here in Canada use dynamic IP addresses. Last time I checked it wasn't even possible to pay for a static IP from Shaw. So unless ISP's can be forced to go through their DHCP logs and figure out who was assigned a particular address at a particluar time (which is what just failed to happen in court), knowing the IP address is useless.
All this 'you don't even have to click on the attachment' stuff is not new. When
you receive HTML formatted mail in Outlook or Outlook Express you are exposed
to the same
set of vulnerabilities as in Internet Explorer.
This can include malicious code (if you don't stay patched) or privacy
invasion in the form of web
bugs.
In Outlook Express 6.0 you can disable all that nasty HTML stuff. Click on
Tools, Options, Read and put a check mark beside 'Read all messages in plain
text'. (You may have to hit F5 to refresh before seeing the difference).
Outlook users should look here for information on how to disable HTML.
I didn't feel compelled to switch browsers simply because of security flaws. It was the issue of unpatched security flaws.
Just about every major piece of software I can think of has had security issues at some point, including Flash as you pointed out. If the developers address the issues in a timely fashion I can patch & move on. Microsoft was not solving some extremely risky problems. So I dumped Internet Explorer. I understand it doesn't mean I'm without any risk - I just feel more comfortable with the new level of risk I have adopted.
Regarding Flash, there is also the option of installing the Click to View extension.
I could no longer live with the serious and unpatched security
flaws in IE. I thought the URL
spoofing flaw was terrible. Then it was followed up with a file
extension spoofing flaw.
This basically meant that I couldn't trust IE to correctly show me what site
I was visiting or what kind of file I was opening!
Yes, a patch was
finally issued for the URL flaw, but the
fix was criticized by
people like Russ Cooper for not going
far enough.
I am finding Firefox on Windows XP to be excellent so far. It was a minor
pain to reinstall support for Macromedia Flash, Shockwave, etc. but my QuickTime
and Acrobat plugins just continued to work. What pleases me most is that web
pages are loading noticeably faster in Firefox. I have heard this claim made
my many new browsers over the years but this is the first time I have ever
actually perceived a difference.
I also like that downloads seem to start immediately
in the background as soon as a link is clicked on. With IE, when I click
on a download nothing starts transferring until I browse to a location to save
the file, choose a filename (perhaps) and then click OK. In Firefox, I am sometimes
surprised to find that my download is completed by the time I have finished
choosing a location for the file!
It is not advisable to completely abandon IE on Windows, however. Firefox
won't work for grabbing updates from windowsupdate.com.
Yes, those are some beautiful machines. They are also more expensive, have lower video resolution, half the video memory and no 4-in-1 memory card reader built-in.
I'm not saying I wouldn't love to own a Powerbook. I also agree that Enderle's review was a bit over the top - especially the emphasis on trivial stuff like the Windows startup sound and the desktop wallpaper. When I look around at my local Starbuck s or library, however, I don't see everybody toting Powerbooks. I see a lot of very boring and generic notebooks. And I simply don't think the Acer machine deserves the amount of scorn a lot of Slashdotters are heaping on it. Are all these people deriding it because what they own is soooo much better, or is it because what they own isn't nearly as nice?
I've also had my hands on one of these notebooks and I liked it. I liked it enough to order one. Apart from one guy pointing out that the Radeon 9200 video is not leading edge, most of the criticism here seems pretty superficial. Or perhaps it a case of sour grapes?
The paint job on these things is really quite nice. You need to see and feel it firsthand to appreciate it. I found it a welcome change from the ubiquitous beige or charcoal grey.
So the video card is not state-of-the-art, it's still not too shabby - 128 Mb of video RAM and a 15" SXGA+ TFT screen to go with it.
Add in a DVD burner, 4-in-1 memory card reader, Bluetooth, Firewire, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 802.11g, 0.5 Gb DDR RAM. If people find these kind of features unimpressive in a notebook I really have to wonder what THEY are toting around that is so much better.
He clearly named his worm "Concept Virus(CV) V.5, Copyright(C)2001 R.P.China" in a string in the binary, but the antivirus people called it "Nimda" anyway.
Maybe that's because the name Concept Virus was already taken.
The original Concept Virus was a significant milestone - the first virus written to infect MS-Word documents (using Word's own macro language - thanks Microsoft, we really need all that capability in a word processor). It was the start of an era where macro viruses became the most prevalent method of virus transmission on the planet, surpassing boot sector viruses (remember floppy diskettes?) and other formerly common methods.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd love to find a DIY version of this cable that connects a cell phone to Skype:
. html
http://www.ipdrum.com/default.aspx?m=4
Such a cable would enable "free" cell phone calls as described here:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050623
requires that you completely trust the software that is electronically "shuffling" the cards not to cheat. Why would any sensible person make that assumption?
Why should one even have to think about what the name is? What's wrong with using the actual name?
There seems to be a philosophy in Windows that hiding details from users makes things simpler. Let's not show them the real name of a folder. Let's not show the extensions on file names (by default). I assert that such obfuscation makes things more difficult, not simpler.
For example, if I set up a policy to redirect Joe's "My Documents" folder to a server, the folder name appears as "My Documents" to Joe, but as "Joe's Documents" to others (such as Administrator).
Now try writing a script that references that folder. What name do you use?is in the Explorer tweaking section. It is absolutely insane that Windows still hides file extensions by default. I never install a system without going to Tools, Folder Options, View and disabling "Hide extensions for known file types". Otherwise Explorer won't show you the difference between "clickme.txt" and "clickme.txt.exe".
Also, on the subject of drive partitioning, I would caution against any partitioning scheme that results in the drive heads doing long seeks between one partition and another. This is the slowest operation that any drive performs. For example, if you create a 50 Gb primary partition followed by a 10 Gb scratch partition, the heads could easily require 75% of an end-to-end seek just to get to the second partition. A drive with an 8.5 ms seek time refers to average seek time. Try finding the spec for an end-to-end seek - it's a LOT longer than the average.
is here.
The Verbatim site mentioned in the article is scant on info and lacks pictures.
Its doesn't pack as many tools as Knoppix, but BartPE can be extremely useful for getting at busted 2000/XP/2003 boxes.
I would add to this that ,in general, good guys would not require keeping
a very high balance in their escrow account. If a typical bond cost $0.10 as
suggested, you would not need to risk more than one or two dollars in your
escrow account unless you habitually send e-mail to unscrupulous recipients
who claim your bond without justification.
Yes, a successful virus writer could get rich by stealing one dollar from each of a million targets, but would you not want to take part in a system that could hugely improve that quality and value of communications you receive, merely by risking a dollar or two in escrow?
Also, if your escrow account gets raided, it would not mean that you can't send email anymore. All of your friends would presumably have whitelisted you and would allow your messages through without invoking the bond mechanism.
Thanks for the tip. I didn't bother searching VMWare's website for an updated build because I have a "Check for Updates on the Web" menu selection that tells me "No new VMWare Workstation updates are available".
So much for that feature.
Trying to install from the ISO under VMWare 4.5.1 Build 7568... at the point where YAST initializes the display splits into 4 quarters and becomes nearly impossible to make out...
Firstly, what makes you think I don't respect her?
Secondly, an offhand comment pertaining to my wife without even identifying her is not likely to turn my wife into and ex-wife. Nor would her reading my comment. It was a simple statement of fact with which she would agree.
Get some perspective man.
WTF are you talking about? I have a wife of 18 years who cooks everyday (in addition to working), cleans house, does all the shopping, irons when necessary and blows whenever I want. Try marrying someone who actually cares about you. That's kinda the whole point.
I disagree with your glowing commendation of everything LinkSys. These are the geniuses who's early model DSL routers would reveal the login password by clicking on "View Source" at the login page.
With my first LinkSys DSL router I found that Internet traffic would inevitably become sluggish or just stop working after several days of heavy use and would not behave normally until I cycled the power. When I mentioned this to a friend he told me that he had two LinkSys routers at his office plugged into lamp timers so they cycled power every night. I took it as a joke until I visited his office one day and saw the timers attached to the wall beside the routers!
I moved up to a newer LinkSys router to support a couple of laptops via wireless connection. The range was weak and connections would frequently drop when both laptops were used simultaneously.
I'm currently using a US Robotics (3COM) wireless DSL router that is giving me no problems at all.
I must admit, however, that Linksys has the first wireless DSL router I've seen with actual support for Wi-Fi Protected Access. I'm still waiting for a firmware upgrade on my USR box to support that.
I found that for what I do from the couch (watch TV, videos, DVD's, listen to music) I never used the keyboard after a few days of playing around. Even on a 21" monitor the fonts are too small to read from far away, especially at higher screen resolutions.
What I DO use all the time is the RF remote that was bundled with my ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500DV video card. (Not the latest model but the remote device is similar with newer models). This little gem has great range, works as a wireless mouse from my couch, has buttons to start & control the TV/DVD app's, control music playback from MP3's or CD's and programmable buttons for just about anything else.
For stuff that requires a keyboard, such as web surfing, I prefer to put a chair in front of the screen and use a conventional keyboard. Unlike watching movies and listening to music, you will find that viewing web pages is not good from 10 feet away.
In this case he blames two things - Windows Update and the Windows registry. Let's consider arguments from the perspective of HAVING A BRAIN:
First things first: Yes, it is problematic to patch a vulnerability via the network if a worm that exploits that vulnerability is attacking you while you're trying to patch, but this problem is not specific to Windows Update and his hardly a reason to condemn it. I have seen Windows Update (along with critical update notification) used by the most technically inept people and have been surprised when checking their computers to find that they were actually patched up to date. Windows Update does not solve every security problem (such as the time lag between vulnerabilities becoming known and patches becoming available) but it's infinitely better than the old days when software updates had to be physically distributed.
As for the writer's second point about Windows Update working together with the Windows Registry to deprive Windows Users of all protection, he offers no specifics about this alleged connection. He simply makes the vague statements that pretty quickly the registry started accumulating all sorts of rubbish and eventually, the Windows registry accumulates so much crud that the user is forced to do a clean install.
Yes, it is possible to accumulate crud in the registry. This is not reason to blame the Microsoft employees behind the design of Windows Registry. What makes a mess of the registry is the crud that YOU PUT INTO IT. In my experience using good quality software from reputable sources causes relatively few real problems. On other hand, if you go around downloading all kinds of applications that you know little about only to find out that the product I downloaded turned out to be some pathetic crippleware, should you blame this on Microsoft?
There are times when a registry cleaner might help, but these tools should be used with utmost caution and require a deep understanding of what you are doing. Used stupidly, you just might find that the next time I rebooted, Windows refused to load. Gee, what a surprise.
I have two pieces of advice for the opinionated twit that wrote this slanted diatribe:
1) Next time you are considering placing an unpatched system on the Internet to download patches, put it behind a dirt-cheap LinkSys|D-LInk|SMC router. It would have saved you a lot of pain.
2) Next time you are thinking about trying out unknown software or taking a chainsaw to the Windows Registry, DO A FRIGGING BACKUP FIRST YOU MORON. Then you might not have to moan about being forced to do a clean install.
If your road marker could depress when driven over and spring back into place, you could use the force of the car pushing it down to charge a battery. This would assume that the marker gets driven over fairly regularly but has the advantage of working at night or in low light areas.
I believe many road markers already the action of a car driving over them to wipe the lense clean.
Check out the floatation devices on the owner's girlfriend :p
Either way, the point is that only the ISP knows who the IP or MAC address is being used by, and the courts have just ruled that they do not need to hand over that information.
The majority of subscribers here in Canada use dynamic IP addresses. Last time I checked it wasn't even possible to pay for a static IP from Shaw. So unless ISP's can be forced to go through their DHCP logs and figure out who was assigned a particular address at a particluar time (which is what just failed to happen in court), knowing the IP address is useless.
All this 'you don't even have to click on the attachment' stuff is not new. When you receive HTML formatted mail in Outlook or Outlook Express you are exposed to the same set of vulnerabilities as in Internet Explorer. This can include malicious code (if you don't stay patched) or privacy invasion in the form of web bugs.
In Outlook Express 6.0 you can disable all that nasty HTML stuff. Click on Tools, Options, Read and put a check mark beside 'Read all messages in plain text'. (You may have to hit F5 to refresh before seeing the difference).
Outlook users should look here for information on how to disable HTML.
I didn't feel compelled to switch browsers simply because of security flaws. It was the issue of unpatched security flaws.
Just about every major piece of software I can think of has had security issues at some point, including Flash as you pointed out. If the developers address the issues in a timely fashion I can patch & move on. Microsoft was not solving some extremely risky problems. So I dumped Internet Explorer. I understand it doesn't mean I'm without any risk - I just feel more comfortable with the new level of risk I have adopted.
Regarding Flash, there is also the option of installing the Click to View extension.
I could no longer live with the serious and unpatched security flaws in IE. I thought the URL spoofing flaw was terrible. Then it was followed up with a file extension spoofing flaw. This basically meant that I couldn't trust IE to correctly show me what site I was visiting or what kind of file I was opening!
Yes, a patch was finally issued for the URL flaw, but the fix was criticized by people like Russ Cooper for not going far enough.
I am finding Firefox on Windows XP to be excellent so far. It was a minor pain to reinstall support for Macromedia Flash, Shockwave, etc. but my QuickTime and Acrobat plugins just continued to work. What pleases me most is that web pages are loading noticeably faster in Firefox. I have heard this claim made my many new browsers over the years but this is the first time I have ever actually perceived a difference.
I also like that downloads seem to start immediately in the background as soon as a link is clicked on. With IE, when I click on a download nothing starts transferring until I browse to a location to save the file, choose a filename (perhaps) and then click OK. In Firefox, I am sometimes surprised to find that my download is completed by the time I have finished choosing a location for the file!
It is not advisable to completely abandon IE on Windows, however. Firefox won't work for grabbing updates from windowsupdate.com.
Short answer: Powerbooks.
Yes, those are some beautiful machines. They are also more expensive, have lower video resolution, half the video memory and no 4-in-1 memory card reader built-in.
I'm not saying I wouldn't love to own a Powerbook. I also agree that Enderle's review was a bit over the top - especially the emphasis on trivial stuff like the Windows startup sound and the desktop wallpaper. When I look around at my local Starbuck s or library, however, I don't see everybody toting Powerbooks. I see a lot of very boring and generic notebooks. And I simply don't think the Acer machine deserves the amount of scorn a lot of Slashdotters are heaping on it. Are all these people deriding it because what they own is soooo much better, or is it because what they own isn't nearly as nice?
I've also had my hands on one of these notebooks and I liked it. I liked it enough to order one. Apart from one guy pointing out that the Radeon 9200 video is not leading edge, most of the criticism here seems pretty superficial. Or perhaps it a case of sour grapes?
The paint job on these things is really quite nice. You need to see and feel it firsthand to appreciate it. I found it a welcome change from the ubiquitous beige or charcoal grey.
So the video card is not state-of-the-art, it's still not too shabby - 128 Mb of video RAM and a 15" SXGA+ TFT screen to go with it.
Add in a DVD burner, 4-in-1 memory card reader, Bluetooth, Firewire, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 802.11g, 0.5 Gb DDR RAM. If people find these kind of features unimpressive in a notebook I really have to wonder what THEY are toting around that is so much better.
He clearly named his worm "Concept Virus(CV) V.5, Copyright(C)2001 R.P.China" in a string in the binary, but the antivirus people called it "Nimda" anyway.
Maybe that's because the name Concept Virus was already taken.
The original Concept Virus was a significant milestone - the first virus written to infect MS-Word documents (using Word's own macro language - thanks Microsoft, we really need all that capability in a word processor). It was the start of an era where macro viruses became the most prevalent method of virus transmission on the planet, surpassing boot sector viruses (remember floppy diskettes?) and other formerly common methods.