I already have a browser that leaves no footprints - Firefox Portable. Loaded on my 1GB Swiss Army knife the only thing it leaves on the host machine is a pluginreg.dat - which contains nothing about my internet use.
The aftereffects of a lot of disk wiping programs are ridiculously easy to spot using forensics tools. If you write a buncha zeroes to a drive and then the binary inverse (ones) and repeat that pattern 35 times you won't see the same data pattern on the drive that you'd see if a file was simply deleted.
When you delete a file from a Windows machine all it does is change the first character of the filename to a Greek sigma character - which the OS understands means that the sectors associated with that file are available to be overwritten. You can still pull data off the drive - which isn't the case if a disk wipe utility's been used.
Even defragmenting the drive doesn't produce the same pattern as a disk wipe utility. Stupid thing to do if you ask me;-)
Justtify your actions with reasoning, not with "while you're under my roof" BS. The kid will just take off.
Although reasoning with a child is nice it's not a requirement. If the child doesn't understand or agree I'm still the parent.
My oldest child is now 31 and the youngest is 23. They are not and never will be my peers - they are my children and I am their father. I treat them as adults but we will never be equals.
And in my house a driver's license wasn't a rite of passage, it was a privilege to be earned. When my youngest decided at age 17 that he no longer required an education and dropped out of high school I went to the local office of the department of motor vehicles and had his license revoked.
Turns out at least in this state if a parent withdraws consent for the kid to have a driver's license the DMV will revoke said license.
Sure. I'd have copied the file from \repair and restored it to \system32\config.
Failing that I'd have either obtained it from another machine or done a parallel install and taken it from there since you're gonna have to reinstall all those applications anyway.
I'd have also explained to the user why it's important not to install Windows XP on a FAT32 partition. A journaling filesystem would have prevented the issue outside of a hardware failure.
I do get your point and will admit to oversimplifying things a little, though;-)
When IE doesn't work with SSL anymore, when the computer will only start in Safe Mode, when a repair installation doesn't work, when the customer has deleted important system files, when a machine has so much "trialware" from the factory, when a machine needs a new hard drive, when the last Windows Update made Windows all but unoperational, when System Restore is malfunctioning, when the spyware and malware is so piled on the anti-spyware programs crash, when the user has a particularly bad virus that has already caused a significant amount of damage to files...
I can repair all of those (and a hell of a lot more) without reinstalling the OS. You sure you don't work at Best Buy?
...that windows was too trashed to repair w/o a format
I just keyed on something you said - no disrespect intended and I certainly don't know you well enough to speak to your technical qualifications but this is exactly the mentality that spawns Geek Squad types.
I've been in the support business for almost 20 years and have hired and fired many deskside techs - and IM frequently less than HO there's no reason to format a functioning hard drive unless the drive's been repartitioned.
I've seen many times where it wasn't worth the *time* required to repair a Windows installation but I've never seen a Windows box trashed badly enough that the drive *needed* a reformat. Customer data is valuable to the customer and if a tech can't fix the machine without reinstalling the OS or reformatting the drive then the problem is with that tech's skill level, not with the machine.
Part of the problem is that we as technicians place unreasonable expectations on our customers - that although every tech here knows that computers require periodic maintenance it's not reasonable to assume that our customer knows it - or even to know that all hard drives fail if you run them long enough and that they need to back up their data. If they knew this stuff they wouldn't need us anyway;-)
Customers are why we as technicians exist - I don't do much deskside support any more, these days my time is spent between ADP R&D and designing enterprise architecture, but one thing I do know is that if a tech tells me my hard drive needs to be reformatted I need to find another tech;-)
Why would I need to convince you? Suppose I don't *need* encryption, but just want it?
Why should the government be able to sniff my packets without a warrant? Why should they be able to decrypt my files without proving to a court that the decryption is necessary?
Mentioned this above, but gas turbines for automotive applications are generally not single-shaft devices. It's possible for the compressor side of a dual-shaft turbine to be turning 45,000 rpm and the output shaft to be stationary under full load.
I was speaking of the *engine's* output shaft, AC. The A831 and later were dual-shaft turbines, capable of wide-open throttle at zero output shaft RPM. True, the compressor might be turning 45,000 rpm, though. Single-shaft turbines aren't real great for automotive applications;-)
Although they all had automatic transmissions, Chrysler's turbine cars didn't even have a torque converter. There was a fixed connection between the turbine's output shaft, gear reduction and the transmission. The fluid coupling in the drivetrain was between compressor and output - that's how they could run at WOT and zero output shaft RPM.
But - I give. Getting ready to leave town for the weekend - enjoy your weekend as well;-)
That is about equivalent to a transfer rate of around 54 amps of electricity at 120 Vrms, that is doable except you would cause the battery to explode. It would be ideal if you could have an affordable capacitor in the car that would hold that much energy (29000 * 16 kcal) over a day that could be charged at the rate of 54 amps and not explode.
You've clearly got something against explosions. I'll bet you don't drink self-heating lattes either.
Gas turbine engines also produce peak torque at stall (zero rpm). Too bad they're noisy and not really environmentally friendly because they'll burn damn near anything - alcohol, peanut oil, diesel, kerosene, unleaded gasoline - and all without recalibration.
Chrysler's A831 turbine cars (early '60s) produced 130 horsepower and 425 ft/lb or torque at zero rpm. Their fifth-generation turbine (1981) only made 105 hp but got 22 mpg in EPA fuel economy testing.
Now all we gotta do is figure out some way to clean up the exhaust from 'em;-)
I work for an agency under DoD. We've deployed several Tachyon systems in southwest Asia. Tachyon is a satellite solution with one fixed option and two mobile options. We had problems in the beginning with regular T1 lines being cut by insurgents or vehicles - and it takes weeks to get a new line run that we decided to go satellite.
The coolest system of the three that Tachyon offers is the 'Auto-Deploy CAS' system, where you just plug it in, push a button and the thing finds the satellite on it's own.
A bit spendy, but we've found them to be the most reliable solution for broadband communications.
The higher your data density, the higher your transfer rate will be even if the RPM rate stays constant.
Outstanding.
Doesn't have anything really to do with latency, but I've seen several comments from folks who worship at the altar of rotational speed when the true factors that determine a hard drive's speed are aa combination of rotational speed, track-to-track latency and data density. You can spin an old 10mb drive at 200,000 rpm and it still won't transfer data faster than a modern hard drive.
As sector density increases so does data throughput for a given rotational speed. If all other things are equal when you double the sector per track density you *almost* double the drive's throughput. I say almost because in order to double throughput you'd have to cut seek times in half as well.
But - fast drives have dense platters, not just fast spindles.
Microsoft can't afford to seriously crack down on piracy...
Sure they can. The cost of piracy is already rolled into the price of legally licensed software. They can't recover development, manufacturing or marketing costs on pirated software so if somebody buys a copy of Windows that was formerly pirated, the entire purchase price of that copy of software is profit.
I went to a shindig on Microsoft's campus while Windows XP was still in beta. There were about 600 people in the room and during the Q&A period on Windows Product Activation I mentioned what I said above and asked the guy if they were going to lower the price of Windows XP since the ~50% of pirated OS were now gonna be legal and if someone purchased a previously pirated copy of Windows they didn't even have to pay development, manufacturing or marketing costs. Those costs were already factored into the copy of the software that *wasn't* pirated;-)
Insuring everybody pays for Windows would be a huge thing for MS.
...When I was 15, my parents were pretty lenient about what I could do so long as I a) told them where I'd be b) who I'd be with and c) prove it (usually a phone call from me to check in). Not having a cell phone made it kindof a pain sometimes. Now parents can maintain the same rules but also give their kids a greater sense of freedom.
Excerpt of real conversation between my youngest son and me a few years back. Kid knows that if he wants his curfew extended he must contact me early enough that he can still get home on time if I say no. 10pm curfew. At 9:30pm, the phone rings.
Dad: Hello?
Kid: Hi, Dad. I'm at so and so's house still. Can I stay out an extra hour?
Dad: No. Come home immediately. I'll see you in fifteen minutes.
Kid: That's not fair. My curfew isn't for another half hour.
Dad: That's true, but you blocked caller ID before you called me. That leads me to believe you don't want me to know where you are. I'll see you in a few minutes.
Kid: But...
Dad: Do you need a ride home? I can come and get you if you need me to.
Kid: No. I'll be home in a few minutes.
Dad: Okay. See you soon.
Another case of technologically-enhanced parenting;-)
...Morally, I wouldn't find it so bad if it were consentual and reciprocal - if the kids could track wherever their parents went... including one parent cheating on another or visits to strip joints. After all, if you have nothing to hide...
This assumes the relationship between parent and child is symmetrical. It is not and should not be - my children's consent is not required before I check up on them.
I've never told my children or anyone else that I had nothing to hide. What I may or may not have to hide is usually none of my children's business. My sexual behavior is *certainly* none of their business. My children are not responsible for me; I am, however, morally and legally responsible for them. Again, in a properly functioning family the relationship between parent and child is asymmetrical.
Just what OS would the windows installer be "upgrading"? Have you ever actually tried to run a MS upgrade install? IT LOOKS FOR AN EXISTING MS OS.
Think about it before posting..
Sorry, but that's not correct. If the installer doesn't find an installed OS to upgrade it'll ask you for the install media of a 'qualifying product'. You can clean install Windows with an upgrade CD if you also have the install media for a product that can be upgraded. For Windows XP that would be a Windows 98 or later install CD.
But - thanks for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts for you.
Slashdot Mirror
I already have a browser that leaves no footprints - Firefox Portable. Loaded on my 1GB Swiss Army knife the only thing it leaves on the host machine is a pluginreg.dat - which contains nothing about my internet use.
The aftereffects of a lot of disk wiping programs are ridiculously easy to spot using forensics tools. If you write a buncha zeroes to a drive and then the binary inverse (ones) and repeat that pattern 35 times you won't see the same data pattern on the drive that you'd see if a file was simply deleted.
;-)
When you delete a file from a Windows machine all it does is change the first character of the filename to a Greek sigma character - which the OS understands means that the sectors associated with that file are available to be overwritten. You can still pull data off the drive - which isn't the case if a disk wipe utility's been used.
Even defragmenting the drive doesn't produce the same pattern as a disk wipe utility. Stupid thing to do if you ask me
Although reasoning with a child is nice it's not a requirement. If the child doesn't understand or agree I'm still the parent.
My oldest child is now 31 and the youngest is 23. They are not and never will be my peers - they are my children and I am their father. I treat them as adults but we will never be equals.
Since he's no longer living in my house it doesn't bother me at all.
And in my house a driver's license wasn't a rite of passage, it was a privilege to be earned. When my youngest decided at age 17 that he no longer required an education and dropped out of high school I went to the local office of the department of motor vehicles and had his license revoked.
Turns out at least in this state if a parent withdraws consent for the kid to have a driver's license the DMV will revoke said license.
Normally on a discussion board the poster owns his/her comments and the board owner has a collective work copyright on the thread.
Oops. /. doesn't like angle brackets. That should have read -
;-)
I'd have copied the file from [windir]\repair and restored it to [windir]\system32\config.
Failing that I'd have either obtained it from another machine or done a parallel install and taken it from there since you're gonna have to reinstall all those applications anyway.
I'd have also explained to the user why it's important not to install Windows XP on a FAT32 partition. A journaling filesystem would have prevented the issue outside of a hardware failure.
I do get your point and will admit to oversimplifying things a little, though ;-)
I've been in the support business for almost 20 years and have hired and fired many deskside techs - and IM frequently less than HO there's no reason to format a functioning hard drive unless the drive's been repartitioned.
I've seen many times where it wasn't worth the *time* required to repair a Windows installation but I've never seen a Windows box trashed badly enough that the drive *needed* a reformat. Customer data is valuable to the customer and if a tech can't fix the machine without reinstalling the OS or reformatting the drive then the problem is with that tech's skill level, not with the machine.
Part of the problem is that we as technicians place unreasonable expectations on our customers - that although every tech here knows that computers require periodic maintenance it's not reasonable to assume that our customer knows it - or even to know that all hard drives fail if you run them long enough and that they need to back up their data. If they knew this stuff they wouldn't need us anyway ;-)
Customers are why we as technicians exist - I don't do much deskside support any more, these days my time is spent between ADP R&D and designing enterprise architecture, but one thing I do know is that if a tech tells me my hard drive needs to be reformatted I need to find another tech ;-)
There's really a simple distinction between nerds and geeks.
;-)
A nerd gets his degree through hard work - attending lotsa classes, studying the material and turning in nothing-less-than-stellar work.
A geek gets his degree by hacking into the school's mainframe and awarding himself credit for classes he never took.
Got more questions? Just ask
Why would I need to convince you? Suppose I don't *need* encryption, but just want it?
Why should the government be able to sniff my packets without a warrant? Why should they be able to decrypt my files without proving to a court that the decryption is necessary?
Mentioned this above, but gas turbines for automotive applications are generally not single-shaft devices. It's possible for the compressor side of a dual-shaft turbine to be turning 45,000 rpm and the output shaft to be stationary under full load.
I was speaking of the *engine's* output shaft, AC. The A831 and later were dual-shaft turbines, capable of wide-open throttle at zero output shaft RPM. True, the compressor might be turning 45,000 rpm, though. Single-shaft turbines aren't real great for automotive applications ;-)
;-)
Although they all had automatic transmissions, Chrysler's turbine cars didn't even have a torque converter. There was a fixed connection between the turbine's output shaft, gear reduction and the transmission. The fluid coupling in the drivetrain was between compressor and output - that's how they could run at WOT and zero output shaft RPM.
But - I give. Getting ready to leave town for the weekend - enjoy your weekend as well
Semantics. Let me clarify.
A gas turbine produces peak torque when the output shaft is turning at zero rpm.
You've clearly got something against explosions. I'll bet you don't drink self-heating lattes either.
Gas turbine engines also produce peak torque at stall (zero rpm). Too bad they're noisy and not really environmentally friendly because they'll burn damn near anything - alcohol, peanut oil, diesel, kerosene, unleaded gasoline - and all without recalibration.
;-)
Chrysler's A831 turbine cars (early '60s) produced 130 horsepower and 425 ft/lb or torque at zero rpm. Their fifth-generation turbine (1981) only made 105 hp but got 22 mpg in EPA fuel economy testing.
Now all we gotta do is figure out some way to clean up the exhaust from 'em
How many droppped calls? How many customers hung up before they got to talk to an analyst?
The coolest system of the three that Tachyon offers is the 'Auto-Deploy CAS' system, where you just plug it in, push a button and the thing finds the satellite on it's own.
A bit spendy, but we've found them to be the most reliable solution for broadband communications.
Outstanding.
Doesn't have anything really to do with latency, but I've seen several comments from folks who worship at the altar of rotational speed when the true factors that determine a hard drive's speed are aa combination of rotational speed, track-to-track latency and data density. You can spin an old 10mb drive at 200,000 rpm and it still won't transfer data faster than a modern hard drive.
As sector density increases so does data throughput for a given rotational speed. If all other things are equal when you double the sector per track density you *almost* double the drive's throughput. I say almost because in order to double throughput you'd have to cut seek times in half as well.
But - fast drives have dense platters, not just fast spindles.
Sure they can. The cost of piracy is already rolled into the price of legally licensed software. They can't recover development, manufacturing or marketing costs on pirated software so if somebody buys a copy of Windows that was formerly pirated, the entire purchase price of that copy of software is profit.
I went to a shindig on Microsoft's campus while Windows XP was still in beta. There were about 600 people in the room and during the Q&A period on Windows Product Activation I mentioned what I said above and asked the guy if they were going to lower the price of Windows XP since the ~50% of pirated OS were now gonna be legal and if someone purchased a previously pirated copy of Windows they didn't even have to pay development, manufacturing or marketing costs. Those costs were already factored into the copy of the software that *wasn't* pirated ;-)
Insuring everybody pays for Windows would be a huge thing for MS.
Excerpt of real conversation between my youngest son and me a few years back. Kid knows that if he wants his curfew extended he must contact me early enough that he can still get home on time if I say no. 10pm curfew. At 9:30pm, the phone rings.
Dad: Hello?
Kid: Hi, Dad. I'm at so and so's house still. Can I stay out an extra hour?
Dad: No. Come home immediately. I'll see you in fifteen minutes.
Kid: That's not fair. My curfew isn't for another half hour.
Dad: That's true, but you blocked caller ID before you called me. That leads me to believe you don't want me to know where you are. I'll see you in a few minutes.
Kid: But...
Dad: Do you need a ride home? I can come and get you if you need me to.
Kid: No. I'll be home in a few minutes.
Dad: Okay. See you soon.
Another case of technologically-enhanced parenting ;-)
This assumes the relationship between parent and child is symmetrical. It is not and should not be - my children's consent is not required before I check up on them.
I've never told my children or anyone else that I had nothing to hide. What I may or may not have to hide is usually none of my children's business. My sexual behavior is *certainly* none of their business. My children are not responsible for me; I am, however, morally and legally responsible for them. Again, in a properly functioning family the relationship between parent and child is asymmetrical.
As said earlier, trust but verify.
Sorry, but that's not correct. If the installer doesn't find an installed OS to upgrade it'll ask you for the install media of a 'qualifying product'. You can clean install Windows with an upgrade CD if you also have the install media for a product that can be upgraded. For Windows XP that would be a Windows 98 or later install CD.
But - thanks for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts for you.
I'd be a lot more concerned about the software for the laser-equipped sharks.