Personally, I would allow the users to use IE and subscribe to an intrusion prevention service for the school. There are a number of companies offering such services, and most offer services which will recognize and block the suspect exploits before reaching your student's browser.
This allows for compatibility and less worry regarding application level security on your systems.
If you have a lot of time on your hands, you could run the dev release of snort and do it yourself, but if things get out of hand the professional services are there.
Use FireFox instead of Internet Explorer. www.mozilla.org
Though this is a quick way to get a "+5 Informative", it is not a valid solution to most Adware/Spyware/Malware exploits. The majority of this software is installed as part of another application. For instance, the notorious "Internet Optimizer" and "Gator". Running FireFox does nothing to stop an ignorant user from falling for a snappy ad and installing something bad on their workstation.
I'm not defending IE, I'm just pointing out how it does not apply in this particular case and Mozilla will, by no means, be the end all of web-related tragedies.
There is also no question like "Do I need to go with dual displays?". If you need it, you know you do and will get it. For the masses, a single display will do.
I've been running a dual display for several years now. FruityLoops and Cakewalk are two applications that never seem to fit on one screen.
My feelings about dual displays: XP support is the best for dual displays, followed by X11 -- I can't comment on Apple, but I bet its simple. XP is nice because the only configuration (on a 9700Pro) is selecting which monitor to use as your primary, until that point the same display will show on both monitors. You will use the Maximize button much less, as stretching applications across both displays is an option. When a game goes into full-screen, the secondary display usually locks out and moves far to the right. This is ugly, but goes back to normal when going back to the desktop. Using media player, it does a gret job of running full-screen playback on one screen while leaving the other fully functional for mundane non-full screened tasks. The same holds true for most Winamp plugins and a couple of shareware games I've run into.
Going dual displays in Linux was a bit more involved. I had to google a config file for X and manually specify a bunch of stuff. It was not Plug and Play, but resulted in a very nice workspace in WindowMaker. Better documentation on the subject, or having a script for dummies would be nice here. While working with Xterms and Netscape, things are nice and smooth. Dragging media players across displays and a few other things have resulted in crashes and other screwy stuff happening.
In regards to the article, this garbage is becoming quite common on/.. It seemed like only two years ago we scoffed at the Wired! articles posted here, as they were considered too dumbed down for the/. crowd. Now, all it takes is some 14 year old's review of hardware his mom bought him to get on the front page of this site.
By the looks of it, there sure are a lot of steps involved with getting this running! I will stick to my writing C in sand and running Linux in my head.
It wasn't a signature, just bold text to alert moderators of a possible troll post. It really makes no sense to me why someone would go to all that trouble to do a test when they claim not to be a user of said OS. Not only does this entail getting a copy of windows, but an x86 system, and paying for the AV software, meager OS knowledge, etc to know exactly when and how the system was compromised. I'm not saying he made a fib, but any reasonable person should question one-liner blurbs like that -- especially in a post where the author is being entirely negative about X while only stating benefits of Y.
OS X updates aren't service packs, they are new OS'es. 10.3.0 is a new OS , 10.3.1 is a service pack.
If you are buying, they'll be happy to feed it to you.
About antivirus and anti adware? As its a BSD based real OS, its run by rights. As its a pain in the ass to code a spyware on linux, its much more harder on OS X. Guess why? OS X shows a user friendly window which is centralized by OS GUI whenever a program needs administrative access.
That is a long way of saying "No". If you didn't notice, Windows is a "real OS" as is DOS 1.x.
You seem to have determined me as saying Windows is better and more secure than OSX. I did not. But I see zealotry shining through by not even considering Windows, which dominates the market, as not even being a "real OS". I would suggest laying off the narcotics and relaxing your views a bit.
For me, it happens to be: XP, Linux, and FreeBSD. Why? I tinker, I like options, and simply do not want all my hardware to come from one vendor. I don't particularly care about XP box as it doesn't have anything on it which can not be replaced in a 10-15 minute restore.
I see that my initial post went from +3 to 1 a few moments after your post. I salute the herd mentality. It happens every time I discuss Macs because I don't praise them, I only speak of them the same as Windows. Apparently there is a problem with that.;-)
I have performed the experiment: Install Windows on a computer and hook it up to the Internet. Leave it hooked up without downloading one bit of software from anywhere! and the machine will be compromised. Why is that Mr. Gates?
How long will a default installation of Redhat Linux+apache from three years ago last if you fired it up and left it online without updates? Wait, at the end of your message you sound like a die-hard Mac user, why would you waste 2 hours setting up a Windows box just to have it get exploited? There are many articles published online with this data already compiled on a global scale. I suspect a troll post.
Under your logic, those features would only work if I paid a monthly premium.
OSX has free, built-in anti-virus and anti-adware software? Last I heard, they had tried to charge for service packs. Are there still fixes/patches being published for OS 8 and for free?
You know, I kept waiting for something better to happen with Windows, but I have work to do and things to create, so I'll stick with OS X and my Macintosh. Thanks anyway.
I've been working and "creating" things happily with Windows and Linux for many years. Sure, I keep the Windows box protected with AV and a FW, I do weekly backups, and have access to a vast array of creation tools. I don't see where the snags are here.
Moderators: Read posts twice before wasting your points modding up trolls.
Not always. At least drivers on the highway are alert and expecting people to do stupid things in cars. That's why my car has 4 airbags and heavy side-impact beams.
A car also doesn't have the problem of crashing/accelerating madly/or turning abruptly when you lose your balance since you are in a seated position.
Personally, I would suggest taking a spin on a Segway before buying into the "perfect" scooter idea. They work well, but it is rather easy to bust on one if you aren't on your game.
This isn't an iPod killer. Every day, there is a new link on/. with information about a, usually nonexistent, mp3/media player and the word "iPod Killer" is thrown out there.
These whiz-bang multi-feature devices are not going to kill the iPod. People bought into the iPod because it does one thing really well and has a good interface. Simplicity is key.
None of these flimsy plastic, rubber buttoned media players are going to create much of a following.
What about the speed of these things? Do you really want grandma scooting around at around 20mph among pedestrians? It sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
It would be silly to run out and adopt Windows for the PPC, just as OSX on x86. For instance, none of your current Windows applications would run on the PPC box, just as none of your Mac's OSX applications would run on an x86. Developers would have to retool their applications for the other processors. This costs time and money, which are not available to most companies. Personally, I would rather them invest more time in porting their applications over to Linux. At least this would offer a clear benefit to the market.
Personally, I feel these moves would do nothing but damage to IT. It would require more support and more development work for no real benefit.
Re:Still why not base AOL on Netscape?
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But selling your soul == Profit!
Spending money to develop something you can't sell == no proft!
Re:Still why not base AOL on Netscape?
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Netscape Turns 10
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· Score: 4, Informative
Because by shipping/using IE, AOL becomes one of their "premier partners" or whatever it is called.
A company I once worked for reaped the benefits of choosing to distribute IE over Netscape. While the Netscape people wanted $45 a copy from us per customer, Microsoft agreed to give us their browser for free and entered into an advertising partnership which reaped us millions in revenue. I can only imagine how well this works out for a company of AOL's size. Amazingly, our technical support costs went down. The statistics we gathered of our 700,000 customers showed both Mac and PC systems had less trouble with IE than Netscape. Less calls to suppport equates to saving lots of money for the company.
Then you have to look at what is to gain by an ISP/content provider to spend enormous time and resources developing their own browser in house. It isn't like they would make any money with it. This, I think, has a lot to do with the status of mozilla source. They threw it to the open source community, now it is us to make it better.
Don't forget: Bush himself has said the Swiftboat Vets were crap and should stop what they are doing.
It is more a matter of tasteless material not fit for the air-waves than a matter of "Well the liberals got this, we get that." thing.
I have my Tivo wishlist grab most documentaries and even the furthest left-reaching ones do not express the Wolfowitz/NeoCon/World Domination theories which dominate the world view of our administration. You have to go to premium stations, buy dvds, or hit P2P for that material. The closest I have seen on basic cable is John Stewart, and that is just comedy!
Meanwhile, you have the crazy right wing pundits with 3 hour a day nationally broadcast radio shows. If you want to hear radio talk for the left, you will likely have to get a satellite radio subscription unless you are lucky enough to pick one up locally (I can't).
I got one of those nice looking shoulder bags from Old Navy. It is an obnoxious orange and looks nothing like something a laptop would hide in. I took the freebie case which came with my Dell and cut out the part which secures the laptop and sewed it into the inner pocket of the Old Navy case. I also added some extra support consisting of a slim bit of paneling with a thin layer of foam glued to it. All the ugly parts are under the sewn canvas, so it looks like something from the store. It is also lighter than a leather laptop bag.
Total cost: $25 + sacrificed cheap laptop bag
It is quite durable and people don't think it's a laptop bag so the chances of it getting stolen are much less. I understand the parent wants something pre-fab from a store, but I figured I would offer up my own experience here. At the time I did this project, I could find no backpacks or shoulder packs which worked well for someone who commutes across town on a bike.
The only thing missing was waterproof materials. I used that stuff you spray on tents to improve their water resistence. After a couple of coats, I could safely make my 5 mile commute in the worst of downpours and still have a dry laptop at the office.
The only drawback: you need access to a sewing machine. Those babies aren't cheap, as the minimum you are going to spend on a "good" one is around $250. Though your friends might think you are a sissy for having a sewing machine, there are many practical uses for having one.
Re:If you don't like reality, skip this post.
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The discussion is not about whether OSX on a Mac has software. The thread specifically deals with opinions regarding OSX on an x86 system.
For instance, Linux and Windows both run on x86, but that does not mean Windows software will run on Linux or vice-versa. Just because someone may port OSX over to x86, this doesn't mean any of the OSX applications are going to run at all. Different CPUs.
Your points are valid, yet not related to what we are talking about here. Don't get me wrong, I think the new Macs are great machines. I'd love to own one if they didn't cost so much. Plus, I already bought Office 2003, so it will be a while before I feel like spending that money again for another system (yes, I use MS tools because they are the standard -- I can't afford a formatting problem or minor incompatibility with client systems).:)
So the issue is: Was there a policy that prohibited use of those systems for that purpose? Granted, since the machines were taxpayer funded, this should have raised some red-flags for Charles Smith (the fired employee), however...... immediate termination rather than a warning seems a bit harsh. Any time you are using publicly funded resources for personal use, there should be extreme caution, and my bias is to never, ever go there in the first place unless there is a prior agreement for reimbursement.
While I agree the boss was a total asshole in the media, I feel the termination was appropriate. I also think the boss should also face termination for making such a fool of himself in the public eye.
In my experience, you don't run any extra processes than you actually NEED to run on a business server. I think this applies even more to tax payer funded government systems.
For instance, the place I work now keeps performance logs of all their servers. If someone were to start running SETI on these systems, then the utilization stats would be off from reality. Reality being, what the server SHOULD be doing and not what some IT guy thought would be fun.
The bottom line, I see it as being an economic one. He was wasting electricity, messing up statistics which could affect the upgrade/projected lifecycle of the systems at hand, and running unapproved software on a government system.
If you don't think SETI costs you money on your electrical bill, run down to Radio Shack and pick up a wall socket meter. You will be suprised at how many more watts a busy system pulls than an idle one.
"Ditter began working on unsolved cases utilizing Google as a tool in that process. Makes you wonder how it took law enforcement that long to think of this."
Actually, law enforcement has been using internet search engines as long as they have been around. Just because an occasional case manages to get some media attention, does not mean the method is anything new at all.
Keep in mind, also, that Google has reached near retardation levels of attention in the media. Anything anyone does which results in something positive could just turn up as a media-worthy article to mention Google.
Look back 6 years and you'll see the same BS with Yahoo.
I swear, if the public had any less of an attention span, people suffocate from forgetting to breath.
Darwin, Mac OS X's unix-ish core, has been ported to x86 and Microsoft's upcoming Longhorn OS seems to be disliked by everyone but Microsoft. If Apple released Mac OS X to compete with Longhorn, would you switch?"
For starters, OSX is tight because buying a mac is much like buying a console gaming system. All the hardware is pretty much going to be the same across the board. They do not have to worry about compatibility and bugs regarding AMD, intel, SiS, and hundreds of other hardware vendors. This, in my opinion is why Apple's systems are slightly more stable than your average Windows box. I say this with the assumption that both the OSX and XP boxes are unmaintained and run by users who do not keep their systems optimized.
I would not run a x86 Darwin, personally. Linux serves all my non-gaming needs as it is, and in my opinion, is a superior OS compared to Darwin. I don't really feel like typing up the many reasons for this, but I see no point in doing something less with something that costs more.
As for XP versus OSX.. I can't say much, except there is an enormous supply of business software and games. It would take many years for OSX to catch up. As much as people hate to admit, Windows 2000/XP are the standard for business workstations. Save yourself the responses like "I AM A DEVELOPER AND I USE LOONIX", as you are not the standard. I am speaking of the masses who do data entry, clerical, medical, and other types of work.
BTW, if you have not bothered to take into consideration, Longhorn is far from a finished product. Of course people are going to say bad things about it, it's incomplete and very broken at this point. Mind you, if you are going to buy into things that don't even exist yet, does that mean you are the type who is going to decide on your next game console by the preliminary marketing specifications of the console without taking into consideration developer support and the final technical specs of the retail product?
What does that have to do with the issue? We were discussing throwing ISP employees in jail because they responded to an official looking email regarding copyright infringing materials on their servers.
Of course ISPs are not above the law. We always worked with law enforcement in any way, but only if their paperwork was in order. There never was any fear or disgust when it came to working with them, a lot of nice people -- yet sometimes a bit ignorant in the realm of technology.
Not only should it be illegal, but the people from the ISPs should go to prison. Yeah, it might be easier and cheaper for the justice department to do away with all trials and just play jury/judge/executioner but that's not the way it works. The ISP should be required to actually investigate it and have real, solid evidence before they go and do something. On a sidenote, I wonder what we could "copyright" on the RIAA's site...
Being a former employee of a major ISP, I can tell you first hand that you are not going to see this reality. Think of this:
You have 6.8 million subscribers, the staff is bare-bones in order to keep the business afloat. It matters not how fiscally responsibe you are, there is little profit in being a service provider when your competitors pay Indians $2/hour for their labor.
Even further, people complain non-stop on the Internet. Just take a gander at a few/. and other techie forums. There is this "I'M GONNA EMAIL MY ISP AND FIXOR THIS NOW" mentality. The bulk really comes from morons who get mad at someone on IRC or AIM and just want a third party to scare someone. It is a real shame, actually. I would come to work and find 4000 emails from customers, other ISPs customers, police departments, copyright holders, etc and 99.9999% of them were complete bullshit.
So, the only way to effectively survive in this type of enviroment is to assume if something looks legit, take the first steps and let the two third parties deal with it on their own. Plus, if you post some garbage on the web, assume it will get deleted at some point. Keep backups. I repeat KEEP BACKUPS. This way, when the differences are settled, you can just upload you junk again and life will be back to normal.
The direction you should focus you anger towards is the DMCA. I know it sounds cliche, but bombard your congressman and other gov offices with letters and faxes with reasonable explanations as to why you think the DMCA is a bunch of crockery. Sending some $30k a year, over worked, ISP employee who's not got a lot of options for jobs to jail because he was just doing his job is pretty stupid to say the least.
Anyway, go read an ISP's terms of service. They are pretty much immune to anything short of calling you racist names or having sex with your handicapped sister.
There is a winner and a loser here? We are just chatting. What is the point in defending some dumb windows client which, along with the linux version, will suddenly stop working once Gmail gets tired of the abuse.
The only losers I see here are those who feel Slashdot forums are a combat zone. This mentality kind of ruins the community atmosphere here.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I would allow the users to use IE and subscribe to an intrusion prevention service for the school. There are a number of companies offering such services, and most offer services which will recognize and block the suspect exploits before reaching your student's browser.
This allows for compatibility and less worry regarding application level security on your systems.
If you have a lot of time on your hands, you could run the dev release of snort and do it yourself, but if things get out of hand the professional services are there.
Use FireFox instead of Internet Explorer. www.mozilla.org
Though this is a quick way to get a "+5 Informative", it is not a valid solution to most Adware/Spyware/Malware exploits. The majority of this software is installed as part of another application. For instance, the notorious "Internet Optimizer" and "Gator". Running FireFox does nothing to stop an ignorant user from falling for a snappy ad and installing something bad on their workstation.
I'm not defending IE, I'm just pointing out how it does not apply in this particular case and Mozilla will, by no means, be the end all of web-related tragedies.
Yeah, I wondered about these points too.
/.. It seemed like only two years ago we scoffed at the Wired! articles posted here, as they were considered too dumbed down for the /. crowd. Now, all it takes is some 14 year old's review of hardware his mom bought him to get on the front page of this site.
There is also no question like "Do I need to go with dual displays?". If you need it, you know you do and will get it. For the masses, a single display will do.
I've been running a dual display for several years now. FruityLoops and Cakewalk are two applications that never seem to fit on one screen.
My feelings about dual displays: XP support is the best for dual displays, followed by X11 -- I can't comment on Apple, but I bet its simple. XP is nice because the only configuration (on a 9700Pro) is selecting which monitor to use as your primary, until that point the same display will show on both monitors. You will use the Maximize button much less, as stretching applications across both displays is an option. When a game goes into full-screen, the secondary display usually locks out and moves far to the right. This is ugly, but goes back to normal when going back to the desktop. Using media player, it does a gret job of running full-screen playback on one screen while leaving the other fully functional for mundane non-full screened tasks. The same holds true for most Winamp plugins and a couple of shareware games I've run into.
Going dual displays in Linux was a bit more involved. I had to google a config file for X and manually specify a bunch of stuff. It was not Plug and Play, but resulted in a very nice workspace in WindowMaker. Better documentation on the subject, or having a script for dummies would be nice here. While working with Xterms and Netscape, things are nice and smooth. Dragging media players across displays and a few other things have resulted in crashes and other screwy stuff happening.
In regards to the article, this garbage is becoming quite common on
Don't forget. You will also need:
A residence
Electricity
Several 120V wall sockets
By the looks of it, there sure are a lot of steps involved with getting this running! I will stick to my writing C in sand and running Linux in my head.
It wasn't a signature, just bold text to alert moderators of a possible troll post. It really makes no sense to me why someone would go to all that trouble to do a test when they claim not to be a user of said OS. Not only does this entail getting a copy of windows, but an x86 system, and paying for the AV software, meager OS knowledge, etc to know exactly when and how the system was compromised. I'm not saying he made a fib, but any reasonable person should question one-liner blurbs like that -- especially in a post where the author is being entirely negative about X while only stating benefits of Y.
;-)
OS X updates aren't service packs, they are new OS'es. 10.3.0 is a new OS , 10.3.1 is a service pack.
If you are buying, they'll be happy to feed it to you.
About antivirus and anti adware? As its a BSD based real OS, its run by rights. As its a pain in the ass to code a spyware on linux, its much more harder on OS X. Guess why? OS X shows a user friendly window which is centralized by OS GUI whenever a program needs administrative access.
That is a long way of saying "No". If you didn't notice, Windows is a "real OS" as is DOS 1.x.
You seem to have determined me as saying Windows is better and more secure than OSX. I did not. But I see zealotry shining through by not even considering Windows, which dominates the market, as not even being a "real OS". I would suggest laying off the narcotics and relaxing your views a bit.
For me, it happens to be: XP, Linux, and FreeBSD. Why? I tinker, I like options, and simply do not want all my hardware to come from one vendor. I don't particularly care about XP box as it doesn't have anything on it which can not be replaced in a 10-15 minute restore.
I see that my initial post went from +3 to 1 a few moments after your post. I salute the herd mentality. It happens every time I discuss Macs because I don't praise them, I only speak of them the same as Windows. Apparently there is a problem with that.
Not to sound like a Windows advocate, but:
I have performed the experiment: Install Windows on a computer and hook it up to the Internet. Leave it hooked up without downloading one bit of software from anywhere! and the machine will be compromised. Why is that Mr. Gates?
How long will a default installation of Redhat Linux+apache from three years ago last if you fired it up and left it online without updates? Wait, at the end of your message you sound like a die-hard Mac user, why would you waste 2 hours setting up a Windows box just to have it get exploited? There are many articles published online with this data already compiled on a global scale. I suspect a troll post.
Under your logic, those features would only work if I paid a monthly premium.
OSX has free, built-in anti-virus and anti-adware software? Last I heard, they had tried to charge for service packs. Are there still fixes/patches being published for OS 8 and for free?
You know, I kept waiting for something better to happen with Windows, but I have work to do and things to create, so I'll stick with OS X and my Macintosh. Thanks anyway.
I've been working and "creating" things happily with Windows and Linux for many years. Sure, I keep the Windows box protected with AV and a FW, I do weekly backups, and have access to a vast array of creation tools. I don't see where the snags are here.
Moderators: Read posts twice before wasting your points modding up trolls.
Not always. At least drivers on the highway are alert and expecting people to do stupid things in cars. That's why my car has 4 airbags and heavy side-impact beams.
A car also doesn't have the problem of crashing/accelerating madly/or turning abruptly when you lose your balance since you are in a seated position.
Personally, I would suggest taking a spin on a Segway before buying into the "perfect" scooter idea. They work well, but it is rather easy to bust on one if you aren't on your game.
This isn't an iPod killer. Every day, there is a new link on
These whiz-bang multi-feature devices are not going to kill the iPod. People bought into the iPod because it does one thing really well and has a good interface. Simplicity is key.
None of these flimsy plastic, rubber buttoned media players are going to create much of a following.
Yeah.
What about the speed of these things? Do you really want grandma scooting around at around 20mph among pedestrians? It sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
It would be silly to run out and adopt Windows for the PPC, just as OSX on x86. For instance, none of your current Windows applications would run on the PPC box, just as none of your Mac's OSX applications would run on an x86. Developers would have to retool their applications for the other processors. This costs time and money, which are not available to most companies. Personally, I would rather them invest more time in porting their applications over to Linux. At least this would offer a clear benefit to the market.
Personally, I feel these moves would do nothing but damage to IT. It would require more support and more development work for no real benefit.
But selling your soul == Profit!
Spending money to develop something you can't sell == no proft!
Because by shipping/using IE, AOL becomes one of their "premier partners" or whatever it is called.
A company I once worked for reaped the benefits of choosing to distribute IE over Netscape. While the Netscape people wanted $45 a copy from us per customer, Microsoft agreed to give us their browser for free and entered into an advertising partnership which reaped us millions in revenue. I can only imagine how well this works out for a company of AOL's size. Amazingly, our technical support costs went down. The statistics we gathered of our 700,000 customers showed both Mac and PC systems had less trouble with IE than Netscape. Less calls to suppport equates to saving lots of money for the company.
Then you have to look at what is to gain by an ISP/content provider to spend enormous time and resources developing their own browser in house. It isn't like they would make any money with it. This, I think, has a lot to do with the status of mozilla source. They threw it to the open source community, now it is us to make it better.
Don't forget: Bush himself has said the Swiftboat Vets were crap and should stop what they are doing.
It is more a matter of tasteless material not fit for the air-waves than a matter of "Well the liberals got this, we get that." thing.
I have my Tivo wishlist grab most documentaries and even the furthest left-reaching ones do not express the Wolfowitz/NeoCon/World Domination theories which dominate the world view of our administration. You have to go to premium stations, buy dvds, or hit P2P for that material. The closest I have seen on basic cable is John Stewart, and that is just comedy!
Meanwhile, you have the crazy right wing pundits with 3 hour a day nationally broadcast radio shows. If you want to hear radio talk for the left, you will likely have to get a satellite radio subscription unless you are lucky enough to pick one up locally (I can't).
I got one of those nice looking shoulder bags from Old Navy. It is an obnoxious orange and looks nothing like something a laptop would hide in. I took the freebie case which came with my Dell and cut out the part which secures the laptop and sewed it into the inner pocket of the Old Navy case. I also added some extra support consisting of a slim bit of paneling with a thin layer of foam glued to it. All the ugly parts are under the sewn canvas, so it looks like something from the store. It is also lighter than a leather laptop bag.
Total cost: $25 + sacrificed cheap laptop bag
It is quite durable and people don't think it's a laptop bag so the chances of it getting stolen are much less. I understand the parent wants something pre-fab from a store, but I figured I would offer up my own experience here. At the time I did this project, I could find no backpacks or shoulder packs which worked well for someone who commutes across town on a bike.
The only thing missing was waterproof materials. I used that stuff you spray on tents to improve their water resistence. After a couple of coats, I could safely make my 5 mile commute in the worst of downpours and still have a dry laptop at the office.
The only drawback: you need access to a sewing machine. Those babies aren't cheap, as the minimum you are going to spend on a "good" one is around $250. Though your friends might think you are a sissy for having a sewing machine, there are many practical uses for having one.
So how profitable are they right now?
The discussion is not about whether OSX on a Mac has software. The thread specifically deals with opinions regarding OSX on an x86 system.
:)
For instance, Linux and Windows both run on x86, but that does not mean Windows software will run on Linux or vice-versa. Just because someone may port OSX over to x86, this doesn't mean any of the OSX applications are going to run at all. Different CPUs.
Your points are valid, yet not related to what we are talking about here. Don't get me wrong, I think the new Macs are great machines. I'd love to own one if they didn't cost so much. Plus, I already bought Office 2003, so it will be a while before I feel like spending that money again for another system (yes, I use MS tools because they are the standard -- I can't afford a formatting problem or minor incompatibility with client systems).
While I agree, that isn't how it is. Nor is this how it will be anytime soon.
So the issue is: Was there a policy that prohibited use of those systems for that purpose? Granted, since the machines were taxpayer funded, this should have raised some red-flags for Charles Smith (the fired employee), however...... immediate termination rather than a warning seems a bit harsh. Any time you are using publicly funded resources for personal use, there should be extreme caution, and my bias is to never, ever go there in the first place unless there is a prior agreement for reimbursement.
While I agree the boss was a total asshole in the media, I feel the termination was appropriate. I also think the boss should also face termination for making such a fool of himself in the public eye.
In my experience, you don't run any extra processes than you actually NEED to run on a business server. I think this applies even more to tax payer funded government systems.
For instance, the place I work now keeps performance logs of all their servers. If someone were to start running SETI on these systems, then the utilization stats would be off from reality. Reality being, what the server SHOULD be doing and not what some IT guy thought would be fun.
The bottom line, I see it as being an economic one. He was wasting electricity, messing up statistics which could affect the upgrade/projected lifecycle of the systems at hand, and running unapproved software on a government system.
If you don't think SETI costs you money on your electrical bill, run down to Radio Shack and pick up a wall socket meter. You will be suprised at how many more watts a busy system pulls than an idle one.
"Ditter began working on unsolved cases utilizing Google as a tool in that process. Makes you wonder how it took law enforcement that long to think of this."
Actually, law enforcement has been using internet search engines as long as they have been around. Just because an occasional case manages to get some media attention, does not mean the method is anything new at all.
Keep in mind, also, that Google has reached near retardation levels of attention in the media. Anything anyone does which results in something positive could just turn up as a media-worthy article to mention Google.
Look back 6 years and you'll see the same BS with Yahoo.
I swear, if the public had any less of an attention span, people suffocate from forgetting to breath.
Darwin, Mac OS X's unix-ish core, has been ported to x86 and Microsoft's upcoming Longhorn OS seems to be disliked by everyone but Microsoft. If Apple released Mac OS X to compete with Longhorn, would you switch?"
For starters, OSX is tight because buying a mac is much like buying a console gaming system. All the hardware is pretty much going to be the same across the board. They do not have to worry about compatibility and bugs regarding AMD, intel, SiS, and hundreds of other hardware vendors. This, in my opinion is why Apple's systems are slightly more stable than your average Windows box. I say this with the assumption that both the OSX and XP boxes are unmaintained and run by users who do not keep their systems optimized.
I would not run a x86 Darwin, personally. Linux serves all my non-gaming needs as it is, and in my opinion, is a superior OS compared to Darwin. I don't really feel like typing up the many reasons for this, but I see no point in doing something less with something that costs more.
As for XP versus OSX.. I can't say much, except there is an enormous supply of business software and games. It would take many years for OSX to catch up. As much as people hate to admit, Windows 2000/XP are the standard for business workstations. Save yourself the responses like "I AM A DEVELOPER AND I USE LOONIX", as you are not the standard. I am speaking of the masses who do data entry, clerical, medical, and other types of work.
BTW, if you have not bothered to take into consideration, Longhorn is far from a finished product. Of course people are going to say bad things about it, it's incomplete and very broken at this point. Mind you, if you are going to buy into things that don't even exist yet, does that mean you are the type who is going to decide on your next game console by the preliminary marketing specifications of the console without taking into consideration developer support and the final technical specs of the retail product?
What does that have to do with the issue? We were discussing throwing ISP employees in jail because they responded to an official looking email regarding copyright infringing materials on their servers.
Of course ISPs are not above the law. We always worked with law enforcement in any way, but only if their paperwork was in order. There never was any fear or disgust when it came to working with them, a lot of nice people -- yet sometimes a bit ignorant in the realm of technology.
Not only should it be illegal, but the people from the ISPs should go to prison. Yeah, it might be easier and cheaper for the justice department to do away with all trials and just play jury/judge/executioner but that's not the way it works. The ISP should be required to actually investigate it and have real, solid evidence before they go and do something. On a sidenote, I wonder what we could "copyright" on the RIAA's site...
/. and other techie forums. There is this "I'M GONNA EMAIL MY ISP AND FIXOR THIS NOW" mentality. The bulk really comes from morons who get mad at someone on IRC or AIM and just want a third party to scare someone. It is a real shame, actually. I would come to work and find 4000 emails from customers, other ISPs customers, police departments, copyright holders, etc and 99.9999% of them were complete bullshit.
Being a former employee of a major ISP, I can tell you first hand that you are not going to see this reality. Think of this:
You have 6.8 million subscribers, the staff is bare-bones in order to keep the business afloat. It matters not how fiscally responsibe you are, there is little profit in being a service provider when your competitors pay Indians $2/hour for their labor.
Even further, people complain non-stop on the Internet. Just take a gander at a few
So, the only way to effectively survive in this type of enviroment is to assume if something looks legit, take the first steps and let the two third parties deal with it on their own. Plus, if you post some garbage on the web, assume it will get deleted at some point. Keep backups. I repeat KEEP BACKUPS. This way, when the differences are settled, you can just upload you junk again and life will be back to normal.
The direction you should focus you anger towards is the DMCA. I know it sounds cliche, but bombard your congressman and other gov offices with letters and faxes with reasonable explanations as to why you think the DMCA is a bunch of crockery. Sending some $30k a year, over worked, ISP employee who's not got a lot of options for jobs to jail because he was just doing his job is pretty stupid to say the least.
Anyway, go read an ISP's terms of service. They are pretty much immune to anything short of calling you racist names or having sex with your handicapped sister.
I normally don't respond to AC's, but here goes:
There is a winner and a loser here? We are just chatting. What is the point in defending some dumb windows client which, along with the linux version, will suddenly stop working once Gmail gets tired of the abuse.
The only losers I see here are those who feel Slashdot forums are a combat zone. This mentality kind of ruins the community atmosphere here.
So Linux users have been parasites and breaking Gmail's TOS longer than Windows folks? I'm proud of you all.
I guess it depends on what you define as using IE. As far as I am concerned, as soon as you are logged into an XP box you are, in essence, using IE.
:)
It is all meant lightly..