I agree. After I switched to linux I noticed how many people make it seem they're running linux (because of their pro linux comments and being modded up for praising linux), but run windows. Look how many people comment on big microsoft stories. Sometimes it's over a thousand.
I want to see slashdot's webserver statistics showing what people are really running. I wouldn't be surprised if it's only 10-15% of people running linux.
I think in addition to our karma, we should have a linux-o-meter linked to our ID name. That would expose that asshole who shouts out "winblowz," "Micro$oft" and all that other childish crap who's really running windows xp in his mother's basement. There's nothing wrong with people using windows. Hell, I use it at work. It's just when the slashdot "politics" skew the reality of the situation that it starts to get aggrivating.
And by the way, yes I did switch to linux to seem cooler on slashdot because that is all that matters in life.
Yeah yeah, my spelling sucks. I know it, you know it, and the American people know it. I don't feel like taking the time to open a word processor and type it in that and copy and paste it into my web browser. Slashdot should figure out a way to put a spell checker in their system.
But if your annoyance for misspelled words equals my annoyance for improper grammar, then I feel your pain.
Oh come on! Next you're going to say it must be hard for a noob to compile a kernel! Man, RTFM!
Na, just kidding. You're completely right. There comes a time when the average user has to spend 20 minutes giving a shit about his computer and learn some basic fundamentals. At some point in time, people, in general, did the same thing for their cars. Old ladies will get their oil changed every 3000 miles yet your average user doesn't know it's bad to click yes to "do you wish to install spyware?"
I've had it with people asking me to help them out with their computers. I feel like a plumber who gets the question "hey, I just clogged my toilet by taking a huge dump, how do I fix it?" everywhere he goes. It's not the ignorance I mind, it's the indifference about computer fundamentals that leads to someone else fixing it. If people don't want to learn that "techno mumbo jumbo" then don't use a computer. If I said to the police officer "what the hell, blinker? Break? Steering away from pedistrians? What is this auto mumbo jumbo?" I don't think he'd understand.
At the top of the list was visual studio.net. Are you kidding me? Their new software "concept" that's going to revolutionize can't be created using a computer running sp2? Does this mean.net is inheriently insecure, or just this remote dcom debugging? I'm ignorant on what that is so my point won't be to spread FUD about.net, just to say "what the shit?"
It seems to me that when a company spends this much time working on a service pack they can't yell down the hall for the.net guys to make a patch for sp2. Even if they made a patch, they should have put it in sp2 as an option. It seems like poor management to surpise people that even their own software won't work with sp2.
I still commend microsoft for closing those old holes and throwing perfect compatibilty in the wind in this case. Sometimes you just got to bite the bullet and focus on new security. Hell, look at OSX. IIRC, photoshop didn't work initially with OSX, but apple had to balls to let OSX create the demand.
Now that last statement may sound contradictory, but notice that apple doesn't control adobe where as microsoft controls microsoft.
Alright, but that was almost 10 years ago. I was looking for the knee-jerk reaction saying how microsoft is worse, but I was hoping it would detail about windows XP.
I'm sure microsoft will spin this as "another hole in shoddy open source software." However, isn't since this was open source encryption it was damn good for as long as it lasted? I'm sure if microsoft opened up it's encryption schemes they'd be cracked very quickly because they're not used to the security scrutiny that linux is required of.
I'm amazing an open source encryption scheme lasted so long. Not because I doubt open source, but if a safe company released detailed specs of the inner workings of their safes and it took years for people to break into them, that's one hell of a safe! I'll admit I don't know much about encryption techniques, but it amazes me that even open techniques can be this good.
Same thing with the RIAA. They could have acted quickly in the 90s and made their own iTunes like service. But they didn't, they fought it for years, and now they're worse off. As broadband becomes more common, it's feasable to download movies at decent quality. I'm not suggesting an MPAA movie distribution service because a 700 mb xvid movie doesn't "replace" a DVD like an mp3 replaces a song (mp3 is good enough for 99% of the people you ogg heads!). However, the RIAA's mistakes should have been taken into account when the MPAA sat on their asses and hoped the internet would "just go away."
Bullshit. This guy is right. What great intelligence and insight are we going to gain from this. I'd much rather see this money go to feeding a starving child or even going to help rebuild a war torn country to sustain itself than freaking chess. Governments with money to burn have to get their priorities straight.
Maybe I'm completely misinformed and naive, but as an American who see's part of his tax dollars go to help people starving in countries far away, it makes me feel good. The billions we spend on aid is justified when one person can live a better life. Now the (french?) trolls can bash me and call american's evil war mongers, but how much have other countries spent to help people in poor nations?
There are rich nations and poor nations, and the rich nations should help the others build a society that is self sustainable and prosperous.
From what I've seen on slashdot, you'll see more ads about how.NET is the best thing since...well...nothing. Ads run the internet. It's a plain and simple fact. There is no way most websites could afford to stay up if it wasn't for ad revenue. And the only way to maximize efficiency is to target the ads specifically to the people who are going to view them. That's why there are so many microsoft ads on this website. But what do I care, it's not going to sway the moderation system so it's not going to make slashdot into another C|NET.
Dealing with ads on the internet is like dealing with commercials on television. Accept them and move on.
Yeah, but it's politically incorrect to make fun of people who have died from bees, nuc-you-lar war, terrorism, or France, but it's okay to make fun of fat people. I'm still waiting for the media to inject that little bit of PC into mainstream ideals.
What I'm talking about is how people joke about fat people like they're idiots who sit around eating cheese and french fries all day long.
Yeah, I'm off topic, but I find it shitty to watch people on television condemn fat people as if they were the evil cancer of the beautiful people. I think the worst part is the connection between being overweight and stupid our culture spreads.
Other than a few benchmarks that were either synthetic or not compiled specifically for the processor, AMD whooped Intel's ass. Some of the gains were quite significant.
However, this speed increase seems to depend on being able to compile your software from scratch which is generally unknown in the windows world. That should change in the future, but for now it's still a tough call whether or not to buy one now. But if you're running gentoo, let the funroll-loops begin!
Not to do another endless gentoo plug, but it will give you a system with almost no software installed. One could simply install samba and use ssh to run the show. If you're uncomfortable about gentoo's reputation, check into a stage 3 install. All you really have to do is configure the kernel and that isn't much work. I've set up a computer running gentoo for this application and it wasn't difficult and I don't believe any other distro (AFAIK) would have alowed you the freedom.
While people may balk at this idea, linux users seem to do more it more often. When a new mandrake or fedora comes out, people are happy to update. And rightly so. It's not that much effort to backup your data to various central locations. I myself use an external firewire hard drive (laptop) that holds all of my important data. The hard drive on the laptop could die tomorrow (it has twice) and it wouldn't mean I lost much.
Reinstalling your operating system once a year is good computer maintaince. Installing and uninstalling software creates a lot of junk. As long as you plan ahead with proper backups, you'll be fine.
I used to have a similar setup and I never got hacked. Most people don't get hacked either, they install a bunch of spyware crap that reduced their computers to shit. I've seen it a lot, and fixed it a lot too. Hell, I reformatted a friends computer today that was killed by spyware. Yeah, I know, easy fix, but it was running WindowsME and I did backups.
Microsoft can't prevent against stupid people who consistantly click "yes" to install adware unless they change their whole security philosophy and lock down their machines. To most people, Gator (now Claria) and Comet Cursor are cool programs to have.
I hate to sound elitest, computer use just come naturally to me like other hobbies to other people. I like to help people with computer problems because I can. But I don't go up to woman and ask them to sew buttons or go up to joe six pack and ask him to move heavy boxes just because they seem to be able to.
Well that was some good flamebait trolling, but I whole heartedly agree with you. It's not up to microsoft to make a full fledged firewall program that rival's norton or zonealarm. However, they could simply modify or rewrite their tcp stack to close ports easily.
As for operating systems that have security in mind from the beginning, Linux is where it's at. Sometimes it's a pain in the ass where I want to run a program that to me doesn't do much, but requires a root password. There is still some rough edges about linux in that everything initially is root only and then you gradually take it down to a user, but that's better than the microsoft way where everyone is an admin. Hopefully SP2 will not live up to the hype and people will try out linux.
yup, it's impossible to teach people good practices if they are either ignorant about security, or just don't care. It's like someone ripping out the oil warning light on their car because "it kept blinking." I just set up someone's computer with norton antivirus and norton internet security, but if they don't keep it updated or let it work properly, I'm not going to worry about fixing it.
It's difficult when people, like those here on slashdot, consider these practices so common and basic while for others it's alien. Then again, football is alien to me and I don't give a shit about it no matter what the "tough actin tinactin" guy says.
Great point. Microsoft repeatedly tries to fix things by putting another layer of security on top of a broken layer. Since most people run their computer as an administrator, every program they run has rights to do anything it wants to the computer. I can set up a computer running linux and I know that other than messing around with the icons, the user can't break it without the root password.
All SP2 is going to do is give these asshole virus writers another thing to crack. I'm sure there will be a virus that disables the firewall because it has the rights able to.
Another problem with this multiple layering scheme is how it just adds another memory hog. I don't know the numbers, but I'm sure the firewall in Linux is a lot smaller because it's built internally into the system, and not another app running in the background.
This is like Microsoft's defrag program. It doesn't work well so that it doesn't put other software companies out of business. I wouldn't be surprised if Norton gives microsoft a cut of it's profits. Microsoft creates the problem, Norton creates the temporary solution, and the user keeps paying subscription fees.
When I was a kid, I spent many hours paying sonic 2. Now I can play it through emulations on my computer or xbox. It's the perfect example how a good game doesn't depend on great graphics or an internet connection, but just a good idea.
You're exactly right. Xvid is the best codec I've ever seen. If used properly, you can get a dvd down to 700 mb at pretty good quality. Put that video on a television and you'll have trouble noticing the difference. A lot of other codecs are way to artifacted when compressed to 700 mb.
Yeah, but the obvious alternative is wired, which is going to be a messy pain in the ass in the family room. Maybe there is an RF alternative, but that would most likely be more expensive and not worth the added cost.
Alright god damn it! Is this the next in the beowulf, clippy, and BSOD line of bad jokes that no one thinks are funny?
Everyone who thinks they can get a couple funny mod points for this crap can go think of a joke for a few weeks and then post it. It's bad enough there is a SCO story here every week, it's another thing to hear this tired joke every time someone mentions linux and cost savings.
Slashdot Mirror
This is another example of why linux is so damn cool. That little kernel can go anywhere.
I agree. After I switched to linux I noticed how many people make it seem they're running linux (because of their pro linux comments and being modded up for praising linux), but run windows. Look how many people comment on big microsoft stories. Sometimes it's over a thousand.
I want to see slashdot's webserver statistics showing what people are really running. I wouldn't be surprised if it's only 10-15% of people running linux.
I think in addition to our karma, we should have a linux-o-meter linked to our ID name. That would expose that asshole who shouts out "winblowz," "Micro$oft" and all that other childish crap who's really running windows xp in his mother's basement. There's nothing wrong with people using windows. Hell, I use it at work. It's just when the slashdot "politics" skew the reality of the situation that it starts to get aggrivating.
And by the way, yes I did switch to linux to seem cooler on slashdot because that is all that matters in life.
Yeah yeah, my spelling sucks. I know it, you know it, and the American people know it. I don't feel like taking the time to open a word processor and type it in that and copy and paste it into my web browser. Slashdot should figure out a way to put a spell checker in their system.
But if your annoyance for misspelled words equals my annoyance for improper grammar, then I feel your pain.
Oh come on! Next you're going to say it must be hard for a noob to compile a kernel! Man, RTFM!
Na, just kidding. You're completely right. There comes a time when the average user has to spend 20 minutes giving a shit about his computer and learn some basic fundamentals. At some point in time, people, in general, did the same thing for their cars. Old ladies will get their oil changed every 3000 miles yet your average user doesn't know it's bad to click yes to "do you wish to install spyware?"
I've had it with people asking me to help them out with their computers. I feel like a plumber who gets the question "hey, I just clogged my toilet by taking a huge dump, how do I fix it?" everywhere he goes. It's not the ignorance I mind, it's the indifference about computer fundamentals that leads to someone else fixing it. If people don't want to learn that "techno mumbo jumbo" then don't use a computer. If I said to the police officer "what the hell, blinker? Break? Steering away from pedistrians? What is this auto mumbo jumbo?" I don't think he'd understand.
At the top of the list was visual studio .net. Are you kidding me? Their new software "concept" that's going to revolutionize can't be created using a computer running sp2? Does this mean .net is inheriently insecure, or just this remote dcom debugging? I'm ignorant on what that is so my point won't be to spread FUD about .net, just to say "what the shit?"
.net guys to make a patch for sp2. Even if they made a patch, they should have put it in sp2 as an option. It seems like poor management to surpise people that even their own software won't work with sp2.
It seems to me that when a company spends this much time working on a service pack they can't yell down the hall for the
I still commend microsoft for closing those old holes and throwing perfect compatibilty in the wind in this case. Sometimes you just got to bite the bullet and focus on new security. Hell, look at OSX. IIRC, photoshop didn't work initially with OSX, but apple had to balls to let OSX create the demand.
Now that last statement may sound contradictory, but notice that apple doesn't control adobe where as microsoft controls microsoft.
Alright, but that was almost 10 years ago. I was looking for the knee-jerk reaction saying how microsoft is worse, but I was hoping it would detail about windows XP.
I'm sure microsoft will spin this as "another hole in shoddy open source software." However, isn't since this was open source encryption it was damn good for as long as it lasted? I'm sure if microsoft opened up it's encryption schemes they'd be cracked very quickly because they're not used to the security scrutiny that linux is required of.
I'm amazing an open source encryption scheme lasted so long. Not because I doubt open source, but if a safe company released detailed specs of the inner workings of their safes and it took years for people to break into them, that's one hell of a safe! I'll admit I don't know much about encryption techniques, but it amazes me that even open techniques can be this good.
Same thing with the RIAA. They could have acted quickly in the 90s and made their own iTunes like service. But they didn't, they fought it for years, and now they're worse off. As broadband becomes more common, it's feasable to download movies at decent quality. I'm not suggesting an MPAA movie distribution service because a 700 mb xvid movie doesn't "replace" a DVD like an mp3 replaces a song (mp3 is good enough for 99% of the people you ogg heads!). However, the RIAA's mistakes should have been taken into account when the MPAA sat on their asses and hoped the internet would "just go away."
Bullshit. This guy is right. What great intelligence and insight are we going to gain from this. I'd much rather see this money go to feeding a starving child or even going to help rebuild a war torn country to sustain itself than freaking chess. Governments with money to burn have to get their priorities straight.
Maybe I'm completely misinformed and naive, but as an American who see's part of his tax dollars go to help people starving in countries far away, it makes me feel good. The billions we spend on aid is justified when one person can live a better life. Now the (french?) trolls can bash me and call american's evil war mongers, but how much have other countries spent to help people in poor nations?
There are rich nations and poor nations, and the rich nations should help the others build a society that is self sustainable and prosperous.
From what I've seen on slashdot, you'll see more ads about how .NET is the best thing since...well...nothing. Ads run the internet. It's a plain and simple fact. There is no way most websites could afford to stay up if it wasn't for ad revenue. And the only way to maximize efficiency is to target the ads specifically to the people who are going to view them. That's why there are so many microsoft ads on this website. But what do I care, it's not going to sway the moderation system so it's not going to make slashdot into another C|NET.
Dealing with ads on the internet is like dealing with commercials on television. Accept them and move on.
Yeah, but it's politically incorrect to make fun of people who have died from bees, nuc-you-lar war, terrorism, or France, but it's okay to make fun of fat people. I'm still waiting for the media to inject that little bit of PC into mainstream ideals.
What I'm talking about is how people joke about fat people like they're idiots who sit around eating cheese and french fries all day long.
Yeah, I'm off topic, but I find it shitty to watch people on television condemn fat people as if they were the evil cancer of the beautiful people. I think the worst part is the connection between being overweight and stupid our culture spreads.
Or you could write it as"
"Government, it does everything the stupidest way imaginable"
Other than a few benchmarks that were either synthetic or not compiled specifically for the processor, AMD whooped Intel's ass. Some of the gains were quite significant.
However, this speed increase seems to depend on being able to compile your software from scratch which is generally unknown in the windows world. That should change in the future, but for now it's still a tough call whether or not to buy one now. But if you're running gentoo, let the funroll-loops begin!
Yeah, after that I had to take a break and notice the fruits of nature. What the fuck???
Not to do another endless gentoo plug, but it will give you a system with almost no software installed. One could simply install samba and use ssh to run the show. If you're uncomfortable about gentoo's reputation, check into a stage 3 install. All you really have to do is configure the kernel and that isn't much work. I've set up a computer running gentoo for this application and it wasn't difficult and I don't believe any other distro (AFAIK) would have alowed you the freedom.
While people may balk at this idea, linux users seem to do more it more often. When a new mandrake or fedora comes out, people are happy to update. And rightly so. It's not that much effort to backup your data to various central locations. I myself use an external firewire hard drive (laptop) that holds all of my important data. The hard drive on the laptop could die tomorrow (it has twice) and it wouldn't mean I lost much.
Reinstalling your operating system once a year is good computer maintaince. Installing and uninstalling software creates a lot of junk. As long as you plan ahead with proper backups, you'll be fine.
I used to have a similar setup and I never got hacked. Most people don't get hacked either, they install a bunch of spyware crap that reduced their computers to shit. I've seen it a lot, and fixed it a lot too. Hell, I reformatted a friends computer today that was killed by spyware. Yeah, I know, easy fix, but it was running WindowsME and I did backups.
Microsoft can't prevent against stupid people who consistantly click "yes" to install adware unless they change their whole security philosophy and lock down their machines. To most people, Gator (now Claria) and Comet Cursor are cool programs to have.
I hate to sound elitest, computer use just come naturally to me like other hobbies to other people. I like to help people with computer problems because I can. But I don't go up to woman and ask them to sew buttons or go up to joe six pack and ask him to move heavy boxes just because they seem to be able to.
Well that was some good flamebait trolling, but I whole heartedly agree with you. It's not up to microsoft to make a full fledged firewall program that rival's norton or zonealarm. However, they could simply modify or rewrite their tcp stack to close ports easily.
As for operating systems that have security in mind from the beginning, Linux is where it's at. Sometimes it's a pain in the ass where I want to run a program that to me doesn't do much, but requires a root password. There is still some rough edges about linux in that everything initially is root only and then you gradually take it down to a user, but that's better than the microsoft way where everyone is an admin. Hopefully SP2 will not live up to the hype and people will try out linux.
yup, it's impossible to teach people good practices if they are either ignorant about security, or just don't care. It's like someone ripping out the oil warning light on their car because "it kept blinking." I just set up someone's computer with norton antivirus and norton internet security, but if they don't keep it updated or let it work properly, I'm not going to worry about fixing it.
It's difficult when people, like those here on slashdot, consider these practices so common and basic while for others it's alien. Then again, football is alien to me and I don't give a shit about it no matter what the "tough actin tinactin" guy says.
Great point. Microsoft repeatedly tries to fix things by putting another layer of security on top of a broken layer. Since most people run their computer as an administrator, every program they run has rights to do anything it wants to the computer. I can set up a computer running linux and I know that other than messing around with the icons, the user can't break it without the root password.
All SP2 is going to do is give these asshole virus writers another thing to crack. I'm sure there will be a virus that disables the firewall because it has the rights able to.
Another problem with this multiple layering scheme is how it just adds another memory hog. I don't know the numbers, but I'm sure the firewall in Linux is a lot smaller because it's built internally into the system, and not another app running in the background.
This is like Microsoft's defrag program. It doesn't work well so that it doesn't put other software companies out of business. I wouldn't be surprised if Norton gives microsoft a cut of it's profits. Microsoft creates the problem, Norton creates the temporary solution, and the user keeps paying subscription fees.
and shipping will still be $12.95.
Wow, I didn't get through 15 minutes of it. It was by far the worst movie I've ever seen.
When I was a kid, I spent many hours paying sonic 2. Now I can play it through emulations on my computer or xbox. It's the perfect example how a good game doesn't depend on great graphics or an internet connection, but just a good idea.
You're exactly right. Xvid is the best codec I've ever seen. If used properly, you can get a dvd down to 700 mb at pretty good quality. Put that video on a television and you'll have trouble noticing the difference. A lot of other codecs are way to artifacted when compressed to 700 mb.
Yeah, but the obvious alternative is wired, which is going to be a messy pain in the ass in the family room. Maybe there is an RF alternative, but that would most likely be more expensive and not worth the added cost.
Alright god damn it! Is this the next in the beowulf, clippy, and BSOD line of bad jokes that no one thinks are funny?
Everyone who thinks they can get a couple funny mod points for this crap can go think of a joke for a few weeks and then post it. It's bad enough there is a SCO story here every week, it's another thing to hear this tired joke every time someone mentions linux and cost savings.