I pitched Outlook for Thunderbird with the Calendar plugin and was happy it migrated all my data from Outlook 2k3 into something a little more standard.
The only thing I've really missed is a reminder feature for the calendar - I still have to fire up Outlook about once a week to get reminders but I don't use it for email anymore.
Don't know if Sunbird incorporates a reminder feature and couldn't find anything about it on mozilla.org, but I sure hope so. Developers, if you haven't got a reminder feature yet I could really use one;-)
burnout, maybe - but i'm still lucky...
on
Pay vs. Happiness
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· Score: 1
Read TFA with interest and some amusement.
I wonder how much job satisfaction the guy working on an assembly line really has - especially considering he makes about half my salary?
I don't make big bucks, I make medium bucks and part of the reason I get paid those bucks is to put up with crap like unrealistic deadlines and upper-level managers who shouldn't be allowed access to the Internet or to read the latest IT comic book and have me drop everything and implement Their Current Stupid Idea.
I used to freelance. I can make about twice what I'm making now by working as a consultant, but you know what? I don't like to hustle and am not cut out to run my own business. Here I just show up, do what they tell me to do and I get a paycheck every two weeks. I *never* work overtime, get to travel a bit half a dozen times a year and make a mid-to-high 5-figure salary for the privilege.
I have little sympathy for those making $70k or more and whine about their station in life - perhaps they should try flipping burgers for awhile?
Job stress is real - so if you don't like your situation, change it. If you want to spend more time with your family that means you need to work less. If you have a spousal unit who can pick up the slack that's all the better, but I believe quality of life is a balance between responsibility, relaxation and recreation. Somebody a lot smarter than me said that there were 8 hours to work, 8 hours to sleep and 8 hours to play in any given day and that if one varied from that by very much they'd be pretty miserable.
My hat's off to anyone who gives up the ratrace and follows their dream - they have a lot more courage than I do. But - the job I do is a direct result of choices I've made - and if I want things to be different then I guess I need to make different choices;-)
If you want the ultimate campaign finance regulation you can do a few simple steps:
1. Repeal all donation restrictions and dismantle the FEC
2. Allow anyone (including foreigners and corporations) to finance any candidate in any amount
3. Restrict politicians to their minimum Constitutional powers, so that money has no effect since they're virtually prevented from helping their donators.
4. Allow any candidate that can get on a ballot to join in any government-funded debate.
or -
5. Outlaw campaign contributions entirely, raise everyone's taxes $5 a year and fund campaigns with tax dollars. Additionally, prohibit retiring Congresspersons from taking a job *anywhere* in the private sector after they retire.
That's why we (everyone except the ISPs) are stuck with bayesian filters, word filters, and other attempts at "intelligent" filters, which will always have a failure rate, not only failing to detect spam, but even worse, once in a while detect a real, important mail as spam.
My DSL provider is pretty cool - 5M down, 512k up and doesn't care what I run as long as I don't exceed his (rather generous) bandwidth limits. I'm running mail, IRC and limited web services on his wire.
The thing that stood out for me (and it's an argument I've had with mail and firewall admins for a couple years) is that an admin should *never* use a rule to delete a piece of email. IM frequently less than HO rerouting to a 'suspected spam' folder is fine, though.
First, I'm not a Christian. I'm not even particularly keen on Jesus.
Second, TFA you cited is three months old and was written at the height of the "Hot Coffee" brouhaha.
Third, just because Granholm writes a letter doesn't mean anyone has to honor her request. The bottom line will control whether anyone sells AO-rated games, not a plea from the governor.
Fourth, I'm neither evil nor stupid. I can participate in a debate without going ad hominem, though. Try it sometime - personal attacks are a sure sign of a weak mind.
And last, maybe it'd be a good idea to spark one up and chill a bit. It's clear to me the debate's gotten to you a little bit;-)
Just my opinion, but the folks who would drop these games are already the ones who choose morality over marketing and may not sell them anyway.
I think in the end the market will drive the manufacturer to produce whatever's profitable, even if a few outlets refuse to carry some of their products. In my mind it should be the parents' responsibility to police what a kid watches/reads/plays and if a parent wants their kid to play GTA or some of the Leisure Suit Larry series or something else, they can go out and buy the game for the kid.
If Wal-Mart chooses not to sell GTA, fine - there are still plenty of places who will. It's my responsibility to insure (as best I can) that my kid doesn't smoke cigarettes either, but I don't see anyone hollering they should be made avaiable to kids;-)
As president of the North American Man-Cat Love Association, I'm horrified at the idea that anyone would use these beautiful animals in a way other than nature intended.
I mean, masturbation is bad enough. Think of the kittens!
I live in Michigan. SB 416 restricts sale or rental of violent or sexually explicit video games *to minors*. TFA conveniently fails to reveal that point.
According the to the bill folks 18 and over can buy or rent anything they want.
I guess it depends on what folks do with the information - if you call 911 the cops know where you're calling from and you can't opt out of that, so it appears to me some data collection services might be actually useful;-)
I wonder if the people howling about this would also howl if they knew that law enforcement can download all kinds of pre-accident information from the onboard computer of newer cars? Road speed, engine rpm, exactly when the brakes were applied, all kindsa stuff.
I see this as a much more desirable alternative to the damned 'check engine' light that tells me absolutely nothing - then I have to take the car to the shop and give the mechanic a Franklin to tell me what's wrong it.
I figure GM will use a lot of this data to generate statistics about all kindsa stuff like what parts are regularly failing, how the vehicles they sell are being used and so on. I'd personally welcome an email reminding me to change my oil as being male, I have a fairly short attention span and will forget about the 'change your damn oil' light in the car as soon as I get to the office and things start coming at me from six different directions.
If data collection is optional and controls are maintained on how data is collected and used I have no problem here.
I can't see why the government would need to know what library books I read, but I can see where an auto manufacturer would want to collect diagnostic information and how that would benefit me.
I pay ~$100 a month for a full-on Dish Networks setup - already had 500 watt 5.1 in the living room. Got a dual channel DVR from Dish and a dual receiver in the home office wired to the two PCs in there. If I'm still bored there's always Netflix.
The reason I say this is that after going to the movies once or twice a month or so I finally got sick of it. Two movie tickets, one shared soda and a bucket of popcorn run about $25 and the spousal unit believes that Movies Always Include Dinner Out.
So - if I get out of the deal for less than $60 I'm doing pretty well and it made the whole satellite thing extremely attractive.
These days we go to the movies a couple times a year instead of a couple times a month - and that's only when we think some film's special effects must be seen on a big screen - like LOTR, Star Wars, War of the Worlds and so on.
She's got about four gazillion channels of TV to watch, enough sound system to make the neighbors complain and in the end it's one hell of a lot cheaper than going to the movies.
Oh - and the full-on Dish setup is only about ten bucks a month more than digital cable was; and we wired up two more sets and got two more premium packages plus a DVR in the deal. Cable companies, maybe you should pay attention too.
And for the rest of you folks who think you have monopolies, I also bought two cell phones recently and ported the home wireline to my wife's cell. It's time consumers started voting with their feet (and with their wallet).
I work for a DoD agency and purchase computers for secure areas all the time.
I'd strongly recommend you read Defense Information Security Agency's guidelines for computing in a secure environment - you can find security technical implementation guides (STIGs) at https://iase.disa.mil/ but you need to conform to the STIG on both hardware and OS configuration.
You'll find other regulations for making machines that process classified material, but if you're looking for hardware specs it's pretty easy.
I don't belleve Windows XP has been certified by NIST but that doesn't mean you can't use it. If you're looking for a really high security Windows box the only Microsoft OS that's certified by NIST is Win2kSP3 with the Q326886 patch. You can get the patch by looking up the KB article number (Q326886) at http://support.microsoft.com./
Don't take my word as gospel, look at the regs - but here it is in a nutshell:
Unless the box can be secured in a safe (like a laptop) it must have a removable hard drive and that hard drive must be stored in a safe when not in use.
No wireless. Not any. Not 802.11, not Bluetooth. Do not pass go, go not collect $200. And it can't just be disabled, the hardware cannot have the capability.
The machine must conform to both DISA STIGs and DoD CERT advisories.
No Internet connections - you can connect a classified machine to a LAN provided the *entire* LAN is accredited and contained within the security vault. No outside network connections except to SIPRNet
Be careful and methodical - and like I said, read the regs. Don't take my word or anyone else's word for any of this stuff - it's gonna be your ass on the line if the machine doesn't conform.
To answer your other question - machines processing classified material can have removable drives - but removable media may never leave the physical security enclave unless it's properly accounted for.
That Windows 3.1, 3.11 and WFWG 3.11 have no known Internet vulnerabilities. You can keep them plugged into the Internet all day long and the machines just laugh at the worms passing by.
The challenge is to have a "persistant ID" that follows the user of the PDA from location to location along a network (typically wireless, from one building to the next). This raises significant concern, how do we verify that the person using the PDA is the authorized person?
That's what the Common Access Card (CAC) mentioned in TFA does. My government ID badge is now a smartcard that has among other things a digitized fingerprint and photograph and ID, email and encryption certificates written to the memory on the card. It also has a picture of me on the card itself for visual ID. A guard checks the card to insure it's really me pulling into the parking lot, but building access is even done by smartcard where I work.
There are government applications that require CAC now - f'rinstance if I need to go on a business trip CAC is required to make travel, hotel and rental car reservations and to file the reimbursement voucher when I return.
At least in DoD all PCs have smartcard readers these days. As time goes on more applications are becoming CAC enabled - I also use my card to sign and/or encrypt email and to digitally sign electronic forms.
Network authentication has been a bit bigger challenge but we're getting there.
Remember, when you read slashdot, the terrorists win.
Actually my responsibility is research and development, not security. I just have to make sure solutions I implement meet existing security guidelines - and you'd be surprised how much good information I get from/.
Scalding users for bad PINs is probably illegal. Besides, some of them are bigger than me and would probably kick my ass for throwing hot water on them;-)
I work for an agency under DoD as ADP R&D Program Manager. I think you'd be amazed at how many people are hollering for connected PDAs - and for the ones who have a real need we usually give them Blackberrys but you can't connect a Blackberry to a trusted network;-)
Granted, most of these connected PDAs will end up in a desk drawer as soon as the user finds out how unpleasant it can be to send and receive email with a PDA, but they still want the things - and most of the people who want them outrank me. IF the boss wants executive jewelry I guess it's my job to get it for him.
Common access card compatibility will be a good thing - except the resulting PDA will probably be about the size and weight of your average brick. Right now we've got more than enough challenges with PDAs as DoD requires FIPS 140-2 encryption, a firewall feature set and a virus scanner on connected PDAs.
I did send TFA to our local IA department just because I like to watch their heads spin around every once in awhile, though - the last time I did that I sent them a brochure on an NSA-approved 802.11 solution for access to *classified* computer networks.
I'm an MVP who's becoming more disenchanted with MS the farther I go - I've been in the business for a buncha years and probably still have a copy of Windows 1.0 somewhere. I *know* I have a copy of Windows 2.0;-)
I have a lot of experience with Microsoft OS - and just like with Linux, if you can't get Windows to do something it's probably a training issue. Sad, but true - I wouldn't expect a full-time Mac or Linux user to be able to install tricky hardware; but then I wouldn't expect the average Windows user to do it on a Linux box either;-)
My Windows XP machines accumulate *way* more continuous uptime than my Fedora Core 4 server does but I think a lot of that has to do with the bleeding-edge nature of the Fedora project. I think sometime soon I may take a long weekend and roll off Fedora completely. I expect a server to run at least four nines' uptime and don't know anyone running FC4 who's getting anywhere near that.
One of the problems with the open source community is lack of UI standardization - and like it or not, *most* programmers couldn't design a UI if their life depended on it. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not where their skills lie. I do know that with an unfamiliar application on a Windows box I can generally navigate pretty well - but I think the Lunix community still has a lot of work to do in the 'look and feel' arena.
I also think that marketing Linux or OS X as being malware-free does a disservice to the computing community at large - as I think users really need to take some responsibility for data security. As it is now most users will give you a blank look if you ask them when they last backed up their data;-)
Some people want stuff to just work - last week a friend wanted a first computer for her almost-80-year-old father and I suggested she go out and buy an eMac. Dad is pretty happy and although he hasn't selected an Internet provider yet he's happily printing documents to the printer connected to his AirPort - and he configured the AirPort and the printer all by himself;-)
Anyway, I figure if it works, use it. Apple and Microsoft both have some work to do to get the user experience where it needs to be (although Apple is probably closer, Wintel's got all the applications). IMO Linux still has a long way to go.
For most folks computers aren't hobbies, they're appliances. I don't particularly want to learn the underpinnings of my refrigerator - I just want it to keep my food cold;-)
This must be a joke. Last I read, the median income for an SF resident was $160,000. I guess this means SF is looking out for those who are unfortunate enough to only earn $125,000 per year?
If you only made $125k a year you'd have a tough time living in SF proper.
[1]: See, it sounds like a good theory. But you'll get more speed by just using a single, larger-diameter disc than you will by using several smaller-diameter discs. If RPM is constant, and diameter increases, then so does linear velocity, and thus data rates. Etc, so on, so forth. Unless you're going to be using lots of independant discs, it's not advantageous. Oh, and it's a laptop, which is presumably meant to run on batteries at least some of the time. It's almost always more efficient to run one motor, than it is to run several of them, along with several sets of controller electronics, and several sets of head actuators, and...
[2] In desktop PCs where you're serving up lotsa little files it's been my experience that the aggregate seek times of a hardware RAID 5 array make the thing slower than a big single disk anyway.
Had an Adaptec 2100S hardware RAID 5 setup in my desktop PC - 32mb of cache, three 9g 10k rpm Western Digital drives. Pretty neat array at the time and *sustained* throughput was fast, fast, fast;-)
Unfortunately my 40g 7200 RPM Deskstar could run circles around it doing almost all real-world tasks. I eventually sold the RAID array on eBay.
Also, sector density has at least as much to do with data transfer rates. A single 9g drive had two platters and even at 10k rpm couldn't match the transfer rate of the Deskstar.
IM frequently less than HO this isn't the first time a patch has been almost immediately followed by a worm - this lesson *should have* been learned two years ago.
I wouldn't really fire the CIO, but I probably *would* fire the person who disregarded hotdog, inc's security policy - and if that policy didn't exist (which is hard to believe) then I'd make creating and enforcing such policy first priority.
After making those yummy lips and arsehole products, that is;-)
Slashdot Mirror
I pitched Outlook for Thunderbird with the Calendar plugin and was happy it migrated all my data from Outlook 2k3 into something a little more standard.
;-)
The only thing I've really missed is a reminder feature for the calendar - I still have to fire up Outlook about once a week to get reminders but I don't use it for email anymore.
Don't know if Sunbird incorporates a reminder feature and couldn't find anything about it on mozilla.org, but I sure hope so. Developers, if you haven't got a reminder feature yet I could really use one
Read TFA with interest and some amusement.
;-)
I wonder how much job satisfaction the guy working on an assembly line really has - especially considering he makes about half my salary?
I don't make big bucks, I make medium bucks and part of the reason I get paid those bucks is to put up with crap like unrealistic deadlines and upper-level managers who shouldn't be allowed access to the Internet or to read the latest IT comic book and have me drop everything and implement Their Current Stupid Idea.
I used to freelance. I can make about twice what I'm making now by working as a consultant, but you know what? I don't like to hustle and am not cut out to run my own business. Here I just show up, do what they tell me to do and I get a paycheck every two weeks. I *never* work overtime, get to travel a bit half a dozen times a year and make a mid-to-high 5-figure salary for the privilege.
I have little sympathy for those making $70k or more and whine about their station in life - perhaps they should try flipping burgers for awhile?
Job stress is real - so if you don't like your situation, change it. If you want to spend more time with your family that means you need to work less. If you have a spousal unit who can pick up the slack that's all the better, but I believe quality of life is a balance between responsibility, relaxation and recreation. Somebody a lot smarter than me said that there were 8 hours to work, 8 hours to sleep and 8 hours to play in any given day and that if one varied from that by very much they'd be pretty miserable.
My hat's off to anyone who gives up the ratrace and follows their dream - they have a lot more courage than I do. But - the job I do is a direct result of choices I've made - and if I want things to be different then I guess I need to make different choices
1. Repeal all donation restrictions and dismantle the FEC 2. Allow anyone (including foreigners and corporations) to finance any candidate in any amount 3. Restrict politicians to their minimum Constitutional powers, so that money has no effect since they're virtually prevented from helping their donators. 4. Allow any candidate that can get on a ballot to join in any government-funded debate.
or -
5. Outlaw campaign contributions entirely, raise everyone's taxes $5 a year and fund campaigns with tax dollars. Additionally, prohibit retiring Congresspersons from taking a job *anywhere* in the private sector after they retire.
My DSL provider is pretty cool - 5M down, 512k up and doesn't care what I run as long as I don't exceed his (rather generous) bandwidth limits. I'm running mail, IRC and limited web services on his wire.
The thing that stood out for me (and it's an argument I've had with mail and firewall admins for a couple years) is that an admin should *never* use a rule to delete a piece of email. IM frequently less than HO rerouting to a 'suspected spam' folder is fine, though.
Second, TFA you cited is three months old and was written at the height of the "Hot Coffee" brouhaha.
Third, just because Granholm writes a letter doesn't mean anyone has to honor her request. The bottom line will control whether anyone sells AO-rated games, not a plea from the governor.
Fourth, I'm neither evil nor stupid. I can participate in a debate without going ad hominem, though. Try it sometime - personal attacks are a sure sign of a weak mind.
And last, maybe it'd be a good idea to spark one up and chill a bit. It's clear to me the debate's gotten to you a little bit ;-)
And this, my friend, is called a logical fallacy.
Just my opinion, but the folks who would drop these games are already the ones who choose morality over marketing and may not sell them anyway.
;-)
I think in the end the market will drive the manufacturer to produce whatever's profitable, even if a few outlets refuse to carry some of their products. In my mind it should be the parents' responsibility to police what a kid watches/reads/plays and if a parent wants their kid to play GTA or some of the Leisure Suit Larry series or something else, they can go out and buy the game for the kid.
If Wal-Mart chooses not to sell GTA, fine - there are still plenty of places who will. It's my responsibility to insure (as best I can) that my kid doesn't smoke cigarettes either, but I don't see anyone hollering they should be made avaiable to kids
As president of the North American Man-Cat Love Association, I'm horrified at the idea that anyone would use these beautiful animals in a way other than nature intended.
I mean, masturbation is bad enough. Think of the kittens!
I live in Michigan. SB 416 restricts sale or rental of violent or sexually explicit video games *to minors*. TFA conveniently fails to reveal that point.
According the to the bill folks 18 and over can buy or rent anything they want.
Thought I had plain old text selected. My next post will most likely be broken down into paragraphs - please stay tuned.
I guess it depends on what folks do with the information - if you call 911 the cops know where you're calling from and you can't opt out of that, so it appears to me some data collection services might be actually useful ;-)
I wonder if the people howling about this would also howl if they knew that law enforcement can download all kinds of pre-accident information from the onboard computer of newer cars? Road speed, engine rpm, exactly when the brakes were applied, all kindsa stuff.
I see this as a much more desirable alternative to the damned 'check engine' light that tells me absolutely nothing - then I have to take the car to the shop and give the mechanic a Franklin to tell me what's wrong it.
I figure GM will use a lot of this data to generate statistics about all kindsa stuff like what parts are regularly failing, how the vehicles they sell are being used and so on. I'd personally welcome an email reminding me to change my oil as being male, I have a fairly short attention span and will forget about the 'change your damn oil' light in the car as soon as I get to the office and things start coming at me from six different directions.
If data collection is optional and controls are maintained on how data is collected and used I have no problem here.
I can't see why the government would need to know what library books I read, but I can see where an auto manufacturer would want to collect diagnostic information and how that would benefit me.
I pay ~$100 a month for a full-on Dish Networks setup - already had 500 watt 5.1 in the living room. Got a dual channel DVR from Dish and a dual receiver in the home office wired to the two PCs in there. If I'm still bored there's always Netflix.
The reason I say this is that after going to the movies once or twice a month or so I finally got sick of it. Two movie tickets, one shared soda and a bucket of popcorn run about $25 and the spousal unit believes that Movies Always Include Dinner Out.
So - if I get out of the deal for less than $60 I'm doing pretty well and it made the whole satellite thing extremely attractive.
These days we go to the movies a couple times a year instead of a couple times a month - and that's only when we think some film's special effects must be seen on a big screen - like LOTR, Star Wars, War of the Worlds and so on.
She's got about four gazillion channels of TV to watch, enough sound system to make the neighbors complain and in the end it's one hell of a lot cheaper than going to the movies.
Oh - and the full-on Dish setup is only about ten bucks a month more than digital cable was; and we wired up two more sets and got two more premium packages plus a DVR in the deal. Cable companies, maybe you should pay attention too.
And for the rest of you folks who think you have monopolies, I also bought two cell phones recently and ported the home wireline to my wife's cell. It's time consumers started voting with their feet (and with their wallet).
I'd strongly recommend you read Defense Information Security Agency's guidelines for computing in a secure environment - you can find security technical implementation guides (STIGs) at https://iase.disa.mil/ but you need to conform to the STIG on both hardware and OS configuration.
You'll find other regulations for making machines that process classified material, but if you're looking for hardware specs it's pretty easy.
I don't belleve Windows XP has been certified by NIST but that doesn't mean you can't use it. If you're looking for a really high security Windows box the only Microsoft OS that's certified by NIST is Win2kSP3 with the Q326886 patch. You can get the patch by looking up the KB article number (Q326886) at http://support.microsoft.com./
Look here for more NIST information - http://niap.nist.gov/cc-scheme/vpl/vpl_type.html
Don't take my word as gospel, look at the regs - but here it is in a nutshell:
- Unless the box can be secured in a safe (like a laptop) it must have a removable hard drive and that hard drive must be stored in a safe when not in use.
- No wireless. Not any. Not 802.11, not Bluetooth. Do not pass go, go not collect $200. And it can't just be disabled, the hardware cannot have the capability.
- The machine must conform to both DISA STIGs and DoD CERT advisories.
- No Internet connections - you can connect a classified machine to a LAN provided the *entire* LAN is accredited and contained within the security vault. No outside network connections except to SIPRNet
Be careful and methodical - and like I said, read the regs. Don't take my word or anyone else's word for any of this stuff - it's gonna be your ass on the line if the machine doesn't conform.To answer your other question - machines processing classified material can have removable drives - but removable media may never leave the physical security enclave unless it's properly accounted for.
Hope this helps -
And y'all thought Macs were virus free? Hah.
Other than a bit of punctuation, no ;-)
That's what the Common Access Card (CAC) mentioned in TFA does. My government ID badge is now a smartcard that has among other things a digitized fingerprint and photograph and ID, email and encryption certificates written to the memory on the card. It also has a picture of me on the card itself for visual ID. A guard checks the card to insure it's really me pulling into the parking lot, but building access is even done by smartcard where I work.
There are government applications that require CAC now - f'rinstance if I need to go on a business trip CAC is required to make travel, hotel and rental car reservations and to file the reimbursement voucher when I return.
At least in DoD all PCs have smartcard readers these days. As time goes on more applications are becoming CAC enabled - I also use my card to sign and/or encrypt email and to digitally sign electronic forms.
Network authentication has been a bit bigger challenge but we're getting there.
Actually my responsibility is research and development, not security. I just have to make sure solutions I implement meet existing security guidelines - and you'd be surprised how much good information I get from /.
Scalding users for bad PINs is probably illegal. Besides, some of them are bigger than me and would probably kick my ass for throwing hot water on them ;-)
I work for an agency under DoD as ADP R&D Program Manager. I think you'd be amazed at how many people are hollering for connected PDAs - and for the ones who have a real need we usually give them Blackberrys but you can't connect a Blackberry to a trusted network ;-)
Granted, most of these connected PDAs will end up in a desk drawer as soon as the user finds out how unpleasant it can be to send and receive email with a PDA, but they still want the things - and most of the people who want them outrank me. IF the boss wants executive jewelry I guess it's my job to get it for him.
Common access card compatibility will be a good thing - except the resulting PDA will probably be about the size and weight of your average brick. Right now we've got more than enough challenges with PDAs as DoD requires FIPS 140-2 encryption, a firewall feature set and a virus scanner on connected PDAs.
I did send TFA to our local IA department just because I like to watch their heads spin around every once in awhile, though - the last time I did that I sent them a brochure on an NSA-approved 802.11 solution for access to *classified* computer networks.
I love my job ;-)
But do you weigh the same as a duck, heretic?
I'm an MVP who's becoming more disenchanted with MS the farther I go - I've been in the business for a buncha years and probably still have a copy of Windows 1.0 somewhere. I *know* I have a copy of Windows 2.0 ;-)
;-)
;-)
;-)
;-)
I have a lot of experience with Microsoft OS - and just like with Linux, if you can't get Windows to do something it's probably a training issue. Sad, but true - I wouldn't expect a full-time Mac or Linux user to be able to install tricky hardware; but then I wouldn't expect the average Windows user to do it on a Linux box either
My Windows XP machines accumulate *way* more continuous uptime than my Fedora Core 4 server does but I think a lot of that has to do with the bleeding-edge nature of the Fedora project. I think sometime soon I may take a long weekend and roll off Fedora completely. I expect a server to run at least four nines' uptime and don't know anyone running FC4 who's getting anywhere near that.
One of the problems with the open source community is lack of UI standardization - and like it or not, *most* programmers couldn't design a UI if their life depended on it. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not where their skills lie. I do know that with an unfamiliar application on a Windows box I can generally navigate pretty well - but I think the Lunix community still has a lot of work to do in the 'look and feel' arena.
I also think that marketing Linux or OS X as being malware-free does a disservice to the computing community at large - as I think users really need to take some responsibility for data security. As it is now most users will give you a blank look if you ask them when they last backed up their data
Some people want stuff to just work - last week a friend wanted a first computer for her almost-80-year-old father and I suggested she go out and buy an eMac. Dad is pretty happy and although he hasn't selected an Internet provider yet he's happily printing documents to the printer connected to his AirPort - and he configured the AirPort and the printer all by himself
Anyway, I figure if it works, use it. Apple and Microsoft both have some work to do to get the user experience where it needs to be (although Apple is probably closer, Wintel's got all the applications). IMO Linux still has a long way to go.
For most folks computers aren't hobbies, they're appliances. I don't particularly want to learn the underpinnings of my refrigerator - I just want it to keep my food cold
If you only made $125k a year you'd have a tough time living in SF proper.
[2] In desktop PCs where you're serving up lotsa little files it's been my experience that the aggregate seek times of a hardware RAID 5 array make the thing slower than a big single disk anyway.
Had an Adaptec 2100S hardware RAID 5 setup in my desktop PC - 32mb of cache, three 9g 10k rpm Western Digital drives. Pretty neat array at the time and *sustained* throughput was fast, fast, fast ;-)
Unfortunately my 40g 7200 RPM Deskstar could run circles around it doing almost all real-world tasks. I eventually sold the RAID array on eBay.
Also, sector density has at least as much to do with data transfer rates. A single 9g drive had two platters and even at 10k rpm couldn't match the transfer rate of the Deskstar.
I'll admit to a bit of hyperbole here ;-)
The bottom line is that either
- hotdog, inc's security policy is inadequate, or
- somebody didn't follow it.
IM frequently less than HO this isn't the first time a patch has been almost immediately followed by a worm - this lesson *should have* been learned two years ago.I wouldn't really fire the CIO, but I probably *would* fire the person who disregarded hotdog, inc's security policy - and if that policy didn't exist (which is hard to believe) then I'd make creating and enforcing such policy first priority.
After making those yummy lips and arsehole products, that is ;-)
eeeww.
I don't eat eye fillet now - the lens feels like eating plastic and it just tastes nasty.