The most ironic part is that the Azure Support Twitter account keeps pointing customers to the Azure status page. Which also happens to be down with 503 errors. Guess they could e-mail for support, unless they are using Office 365. Or request help via the Management Portal, but guess that's down too. lol.
Reminds me of a joke I heard as a kid. That a clown told me outside of a tent at our county fair.
"Who was the first carpenter?"
"Eve. She made Adam's banana stand."
It took me about a week to understand the joke. But I was only like 9 years old and looking back I shouldn't have been hanging with a old clown smoking a cigar that was telling dirty jokes behind a fair tent...
I have used various Linux distros going back to 1997. And various Windows versions going back to 3.1. Servers, clients, etc. And I can say that a lot of Linux offerings have improved the front end UX. And installing/updating/configuring apps is a lot easier nowadays with current Linux distros.
But that being said, I still can't see Linux taking over the typical home user's environment. I am a techie, and I like to noodle around. So working around quirks, compilation issues for third party drivers, and the like is a challenge that I don't mind. But it still very much has the look and feel of a hobbyist's experience. Not talking about server-end aspects of Linux. Talking about the enduser's aspects.
Plus as others have noted, there are a fair amount of software packages that are Windows-only. And in those cases, the typical home user might not be willing to start digging into WINE to try to see if they can crowbar their package to port over. And I can perform unbiased side-by-side comparisons, since I have a Macbook Pro, a Windows 7 Pro, and a Debian 8 laptop trio sitting at home:)
...this. I have an older Macbook Pro. The Intel Core i5 CPU is okay for what I need. But the 8 GB max RAM is laughable. Newer models I see on Apple's website have a little more horsepower of late. But a year or so ago I was specking out some higher-end Mac workstations for our marketing/advertising staff. Either I could get a model with a lot of RAM, but an older Intel CPU. Or vice-versa.
That sounds like a complete disaster! I can't imagine the time, expense, and repercussions that resulted. When it comes to specialty equipment with not off-the-shelf hardware I definitely wouldn't put into auto-update mode. Regardless of the calendar year or relative maturity of Microsoft's OS version.
Servers I manually update after a test run. Most are standardized in terms of hardware. Clients that do auto-update are all vanilla with no oddball hardware involved. The handful of proprietary hardware type clients I have are indeed a more manual effort. Treated like servers really in a lot of ways. Ensuring the hardware vendor has ensured support for the OS update, ensuring the vendor's drivers are already at the latest recommended version, ad nauseam.
Example of back-assward vendors would be ShoreTel VoIP servers. The vendor doesn't even recommend running ANY Windows Updates on them?!
Although in the Linux world I can't imagine that distro updates haven't proven incompatible with certain hardware vendors, right? Plus Microsoft or any OS vendor cannot guarantee that their updates are compatible with every hardware vendor's components. Not to mention if the driver versions aren't at the latest supported. If the hardware vendor shut down years prior then that points to the need for replacing the orphaned platform, right?
Okay I guess I did ask for it when I mentioned the rhetorical question. The MS security patches being notorious for bricking expensive equipment reference. Any somewhat recent and significant examples? Reason I'm asking is because I've sysadminned Linux servers going back to around 1997. And in parallel sysadminned Windows servers going back to NT 3.51.
When it comes to MS security patches bricking equipment, if you are talking about servers the last time I recall a major SNAFU was NT 4.0 Service Pack 6. That's why SP 6a was rolled out pretty damn quick afterward. Seeing it basically broke the TCP/IP stack for most unfortunate early installers. I was one of them and that left me gunshy for a few years in terms of patching too soon.
For the past 3-4 years I've had all Windows-based business clients running Windows 7 Pro. And all servers running Windows 2008 R2 and nowadays Windows 2012 R2. All important and critical level Windows Updates roll out automatically after hours weekly to the clients. And I manually update the servers once a month. Haven't run into a single case of anything bricking, not updating, BSOD'ing, etc. For 3-4 years.
I understand that large organizations need change control, test beds, implementation schedules, blackout schedules, etc. but even then leaving things hanging for several months is bad practice. Regardless of which platform you maintain and support. As I said, I've adminned Linux as well going back 20 years. When I see the IoT exploits hitting old Linux-based revisions running on cable modems, security DVR's, etc. it's a similar oversight. Those old, vulnerable packages should've been patched by the hardware vendors and/or been addressed by the local sysadmins if patches were released.
As for Windows 8.1, Windows 10, etc. running on the clients, agreed, there are plenty of update horror stories in the wild. But then again what business environment would consider running them? As bad as running Windows XP in terms of the why? And yes, Windows 7 can run 99% of Windows XP applications as far as I know...
The biggest worms, trojans, etc. all hit Windows? Rhetorical question, so no jesting or serious responses requested:) But this one looks to be fairly sizeable. Plenty of European telecoms, and other industries hit so far today. Even read reports of FedEx's Memphis hub instructing employees to power off those PC's.
Here's a map --> https://intel.malwaretech.com/.... The ironic thing is that these are far from true 0-day exploits. Patch was released for this in March. Regardless of your organization size, testing and rolling out patches shouldn't be that difficult. Given it's been a few months. This is speaking from a person who's been a cog in the wheel at larger US organizations as well as supported smaller places...
I've had experience with that in order to bundle Windows Updates in with the original ISO install. So you're telling me you've accomplished the same with Visual Studio ISO installs as well? Last time I looked at that, the quirks and gotchas took as long to rectify as it would just to install as-is.Boy oh boy, I have lucked out and found a real Cracker Jack right here...
I could do a clean install and reinstall all application in 45 minutes. I've done that only three times over the last ten years since Windows Vista.
...45 minutes? That must've been for a home/play PC, right? At work, between multiple version of Visual Studio, lots of admin/mgmt applications, multiple versions of SQL Server, etc. a clean install and app reinstall is more like a full day of teeth gnashing. About half of that time involves the countless service packs and updates being pulled down and installed.
I agree in terms of Qualcomm turning the screws. That's ridiculous on their part. I was just saying that it's not like Apple has no other options in terms of looking for a chip manufacturer they can partner with. Although I am ignorant as to contractual obligations and admittedly didn't RTFA...
Don't know if that assertion is accurate. I've played around with several different chipsets for home projects. Both CDMA and GSM varieties. None of these were stamped as Qualcomm. Sure they are a huge player, but...
Exactly. When cleaning out my storage vault at work I ran across old DAT tapes, Ditto ZIP drive media, etc. If I dug around old boxes at home I'm sure I might stumble across an old magneto-optical media example or three. Reading media, even if pristine condition, without the proper methods...meh...
Why would any web admin tool have open access from any public IP in the first place? I know that the way I handle things for what I host here I limit access to certain narrow IP subnets that cover where the regular admin users would be coming from. Then if someone cannot access the tool because they are temporarily coming in from a different IP range then I can add that on the fly. You figure that, combined with some mechanism for temporarily disabling login access after a set number of failed attempts in a set period of time, makes things at least a little more secured.
This is all outside of the PHP arena that I'm talking about, but the concepts should be similar, no?
My biggest concern as someone who has a SF project out there (albeit decrepit), is what auditing/security measures does SF employ to screen their mirroring hosts? You'd think that there would at least be some high-level auditing performed to ensure that all of the open source code is somewhat secure...
Good point that I neglected to take into account! As a person who has tried to replace my iPhone battery these devices are indeed densely packed (to put it mildly). A few millimeters here and there saved means more horsepower and features for sure...
Looking at their website, they also have the C64. And they even go further back in time. Reminiscent of my old VIC-20 I used to tape-load games on (only to have the tape be wrinkled and encounter load errors) they have the VIC. Although it looks suspiciously like the "reissued" Amiga they are trying to sell.
Lemme see...beta-status operating system. Check. Way overpriced hardware. Check. Free Linux distro. Check. Taking a brand name and using it as snake oil (much like Guns 'N Roses is doing now). Check. Where do I sign up????
What was the compelling reason for developing this? An overwhelming consumer need? Not really. It's not like folks are/were clamoring for something that's even smaller and easier to lose. Perhaps the reason was to claim a certain coolness factor in that it could be accomplished. Like making a teeny, tiny credit card that people could lose on a frequent basis.
Perhaps the smaller form factor lowers manufacturing, production, and distribution costs by 60% as well? Or having a different SIM card receptacle in devices would mandate consumers belly up to the bar. Those could be the only other justifications that I could see.
Company expenses cannot be used by employees for purchasing competing products? I'm aghast with surprise! Oh yeah, this is Microsoft we are talking about. So it's news *rolls eyes*
Now, ex-Nokia exec Tomi Ahonen, is calling the Nokia's Windows Phone strategy 'a certain road to death.'
There are two layers of bias. The first is the tone of the submitter. Then there is a the second layer with the ex executive. All we need is a Netcraft meme thrown in for good measure...sigh...
Slashdot Mirror
And the POTUS will avail himself to perform thorough regression testing at all hours for any new releases.
The most ironic part is that the Azure Support Twitter account keeps pointing customers to the Azure status page. Which also happens to be down with 503 errors. Guess they could e-mail for support, unless they are using Office 365. Or request help via the Management Portal, but guess that's down too. lol.
Reminds me of a joke I heard as a kid. That a clown told me outside of a tent at our county fair.
"Who was the first carpenter?"
"Eve. She made Adam's banana stand."
It took me about a week to understand the joke. But I was only like 9 years old and looking back I shouldn't have been hanging with a old clown smoking a cigar that was telling dirty jokes behind a fair tent...
I have used various Linux distros going back to 1997. And various Windows versions going back to 3.1. Servers, clients, etc. And I can say that a lot of Linux offerings have improved the front end UX. And installing/updating/configuring apps is a lot easier nowadays with current Linux distros.
But that being said, I still can't see Linux taking over the typical home user's environment. I am a techie, and I like to noodle around. So working around quirks, compilation issues for third party drivers, and the like is a challenge that I don't mind. But it still very much has the look and feel of a hobbyist's experience. Not talking about server-end aspects of Linux. Talking about the enduser's aspects.
Plus as others have noted, there are a fair amount of software packages that are Windows-only. And in those cases, the typical home user might not be willing to start digging into WINE to try to see if they can crowbar their package to port over. And I can perform unbiased side-by-side comparisons, since I have a Macbook Pro, a Windows 7 Pro, and a Debian 8 laptop trio sitting at home :)
Anyone remember the old game Apple Panic?
...this. I have an older Macbook Pro. The Intel Core i5 CPU is okay for what I need. But the 8 GB max RAM is laughable. Newer models I see on Apple's website have a little more horsepower of late. But a year or so ago I was specking out some higher-end Mac workstations for our marketing/advertising staff. Either I could get a model with a lot of RAM, but an older Intel CPU. Or vice-versa.
That sounds like a complete disaster! I can't imagine the time, expense, and repercussions that resulted. When it comes to specialty equipment with not off-the-shelf hardware I definitely wouldn't put into auto-update mode. Regardless of the calendar year or relative maturity of Microsoft's OS version.
Servers I manually update after a test run. Most are standardized in terms of hardware. Clients that do auto-update are all vanilla with no oddball hardware involved. The handful of proprietary hardware type clients I have are indeed a more manual effort. Treated like servers really in a lot of ways. Ensuring the hardware vendor has ensured support for the OS update, ensuring the vendor's drivers are already at the latest recommended version, ad nauseam.
Example of back-assward vendors would be ShoreTel VoIP servers. The vendor doesn't even recommend running ANY Windows Updates on them?!
Although in the Linux world I can't imagine that distro updates haven't proven incompatible with certain hardware vendors, right? Plus Microsoft or any OS vendor cannot guarantee that their updates are compatible with every hardware vendor's components. Not to mention if the driver versions aren't at the latest supported. If the hardware vendor shut down years prior then that points to the need for replacing the orphaned platform, right?
Okay I guess I did ask for it when I mentioned the rhetorical question. The MS security patches being notorious for bricking expensive equipment reference. Any somewhat recent and significant examples? Reason I'm asking is because I've sysadminned Linux servers going back to around 1997. And in parallel sysadminned Windows servers going back to NT 3.51.
When it comes to MS security patches bricking equipment, if you are talking about servers the last time I recall a major SNAFU was NT 4.0 Service Pack 6. That's why SP 6a was rolled out pretty damn quick afterward. Seeing it basically broke the TCP/IP stack for most unfortunate early installers. I was one of them and that left me gunshy for a few years in terms of patching too soon.
For the past 3-4 years I've had all Windows-based business clients running Windows 7 Pro. And all servers running Windows 2008 R2 and nowadays Windows 2012 R2. All important and critical level Windows Updates roll out automatically after hours weekly to the clients. And I manually update the servers once a month. Haven't run into a single case of anything bricking, not updating, BSOD'ing, etc. For 3-4 years.
I understand that large organizations need change control, test beds, implementation schedules, blackout schedules, etc. but even then leaving things hanging for several months is bad practice. Regardless of which platform you maintain and support. As I said, I've adminned Linux as well going back 20 years. When I see the IoT exploits hitting old Linux-based revisions running on cable modems, security DVR's, etc. it's a similar oversight. Those old, vulnerable packages should've been patched by the hardware vendors and/or been addressed by the local sysadmins if patches were released.
As for Windows 8.1, Windows 10, etc. running on the clients, agreed, there are plenty of update horror stories in the wild. But then again what business environment would consider running them? As bad as running Windows XP in terms of the why? And yes, Windows 7 can run 99% of Windows XP applications as far as I know...
The biggest worms, trojans, etc. all hit Windows? Rhetorical question, so no jesting or serious responses requested :) But this one looks to be fairly sizeable. Plenty of European telecoms, and other industries hit so far today. Even read reports of FedEx's Memphis hub instructing employees to power off those PC's.
Here's a map --> https://intel.malwaretech.com/.... The ironic thing is that these are far from true 0-day exploits. Patch was released for this in March. Regardless of your organization size, testing and rolling out patches shouldn't be that difficult. Given it's been a few months. This is speaking from a person who's been a cog in the wheel at larger US organizations as well as supported smaller places...
I've had experience with that in order to bundle Windows Updates in with the original ISO install. So you're telling me you've accomplished the same with Visual Studio ISO installs as well? Last time I looked at that, the quirks and gotchas took as long to rectify as it would just to install as-is.Boy oh boy, I have lucked out and found a real Cracker Jack right here...
I could do a clean install and reinstall all application in 45 minutes. I've done that only three times over the last ten years since Windows Vista.
...45 minutes? That must've been for a home/play PC, right? At work, between multiple version of Visual Studio, lots of admin/mgmt applications, multiple versions of SQL Server, etc. a clean install and app reinstall is more like a full day of teeth gnashing. About half of that time involves the countless service packs and updates being pulled down and installed.
Exactly. Like a doctor telling his patient they have ALS...oops, no he meant to say IBS instead.
I agree in terms of Qualcomm turning the screws. That's ridiculous on their part. I was just saying that it's not like Apple has no other options in terms of looking for a chip manufacturer they can partner with. Although I am ignorant as to contractual obligations and admittedly didn't RTFA...
Don't know if that assertion is accurate. I've played around with several different chipsets for home projects. Both CDMA and GSM varieties. None of these were stamped as Qualcomm. Sure they are a huge player, but...
...my iPhone keeps running out of space. All of the photos I take with it are storing that dad-gum EXIF data. *sarcasm inserted*
Exactly. When cleaning out my storage vault at work I ran across old DAT tapes, Ditto ZIP drive media, etc. If I dug around old boxes at home I'm sure I might stumble across an old magneto-optical media example or three. Reading media, even if pristine condition, without the proper methods...meh...
Or maybe they authored the original using LibreOffice??? *ducks*
Why would any web admin tool have open access from any public IP in the first place? I know that the way I handle things for what I host here I limit access to certain narrow IP subnets that cover where the regular admin users would be coming from. Then if someone cannot access the tool because they are temporarily coming in from a different IP range then I can add that on the fly. You figure that, combined with some mechanism for temporarily disabling login access after a set number of failed attempts in a set period of time, makes things at least a little more secured.
This is all outside of the PHP arena that I'm talking about, but the concepts should be similar, no?
My biggest concern as someone who has a SF project out there (albeit decrepit), is what auditing/security measures does SF employ to screen their mirroring hosts? You'd think that there would at least be some high-level auditing performed to ensure that all of the open source code is somewhat secure...
Good point that I neglected to take into account! As a person who has tried to replace my iPhone battery these devices are indeed densely packed (to put it mildly). A few millimeters here and there saved means more horsepower and features for sure...
Looking at their website, they also have the C64. And they even go further back in time. Reminiscent of my old VIC-20 I used to tape-load games on (only to have the tape be wrinkled and encounter load errors) they have the VIC. Although it looks suspiciously like the "reissued" Amiga they are trying to sell.
Lemme see...beta-status operating system. Check. Way overpriced hardware. Check. Free Linux distro. Check. Taking a brand name and using it as snake oil (much like Guns 'N Roses is doing now). Check. Where do I sign up????
What was the compelling reason for developing this? An overwhelming consumer need? Not really. It's not like folks are/were clamoring for something that's even smaller and easier to lose. Perhaps the reason was to claim a certain coolness factor in that it could be accomplished. Like making a teeny, tiny credit card that people could lose on a frequent basis.
Perhaps the smaller form factor lowers manufacturing, production, and distribution costs by 60% as well? Or having a different SIM card receptacle in devices would mandate consumers belly up to the bar. Those could be the only other justifications that I could see.
Company expenses cannot be used by employees for purchasing competing products? I'm aghast with surprise! Oh yeah, this is Microsoft we are talking about. So it's news *rolls eyes*
My smart money says is will reside in the land of Microsoft Bob and Clippy...
Now, ex-Nokia exec Tomi Ahonen, is calling the Nokia's Windows Phone strategy 'a certain road to death.'
There are two layers of bias. The first is the tone of the submitter. Then there is a the second layer with the ex executive. All we need is a Netcraft meme thrown in for good measure...sigh...