>I believe teenagers are more impressionable than adults, and we should be careful about their level of violence ingested.
So the game comes with a.22-caliber rifle? Seems to me that getting a weapon, making an effort to load it, planning out an attack, and doing it takes a lot of time, thought, will, and complete disdain for your fellow man. Its hard to see how they could be persuaded to do all this by a game.
Did it ever occur to you that perhaps they're lying about GTA to get the charges dropped? Do something stupid blame TV, videogames, liberal society, etc and hope you find a sympathetic jury. Its wasn't a bad gambit in conservative Tennessee but it failed, now that they're guilty some opportunist lawyer is trying for a civil suit. May his BS end in failure too.
This is like demanding Enron being removed from the yellowpages. Control search engines and you control the net I guess, this is one of the bigger problems of the DMCA. Linking should not be illegal regardless of the site.
Let them fight their battles, but leave unaffiliated third-parties out of it. Google has nothing to do with kazaalite, google has nothing to do with scientology, etc. You would think a GOP administration would defend business like google and free speech, but the DMCA has yet to be challenged and Ashcroft has no problem using it for his own end.
I don't want a goverment sanitized search engine, I want the rawest information I can get.
>I didn't have to do a thing because my system updated itself.
Well, now you're out of luck. Joe Sixpack not only needs autoupdate on 24/7 he also needs to visit officeupdate to get the office patches: http://office.microsoft.com/ProductUpdates/default.aspx
Can MS make this more confusing for the average user? KB824993 and KB826292 do not show on a fresh Windowsupdate.com scan or with the MSBL tool.
Okay, the connector is 69 dollars. Not cheap and not exactly expensive. You're living in a Microsoft world but you like Linux, why not just buy it? At one time in my life I had a nice foreign car and I had to pay extra for parts, labor, etc. To me it was an opportunity cost worth paying for. I didn't want another Chevy so I paid a little extra. In the long run it made me a bit happier and it was nice owning something somewhat rare/different.
Just out of curioustiy: at what price-point will most people in your situation actually buy the dang thing? What if it was 29.99? How cheap are you?
Or better yet why doesn't Ximian offer a student discount?
It blows my mind that hard-core linux types will put 10 hours into figuring out some trivial problem but won't blow 70 dollars on a piece of software that will let them use Exchange.
"So Ted, what did you do today?"
"I wrote a script that gets my email from OWA 2000 and puts it in a comma deliminated file on one of my linux partitions. Then I wrote an app that will take this file and run a fake POP3 server for me to get the emails. Pretty good eh?"
"How much time did you spend on this, Ted?"
"I dunno, 3 or 4 hours."
"Dont you bill $50 an hour."
"Yep."
"Why dont you just buy the damn connector?"
*long pause*
"Cause Stallman says proprietary software is bad? Oh man, I need help."
> Isn't really needed by most people. Most people only use the net for email and some shopping.
Who are these "people?" Certainly they don't have kids, because they would love broadband as it doesn't tie up the phone line. Certainly they aren't working in IT or any job that uses remote access (VPN, etc). Certainly people getting ripped off by AOL who could have an always on connection got just a little more. Certianly not people who watch trailers or actually use their computers by downloading software. Or downloading updates and security patches.
What does that leave us? A total technophobe. Fine, but as the net becomes more of a needed piece of infrastructure the less of those we will have.
When I'm in a position like that I'm thankful everyone can read RTF. Its not feature rich, but it works for just about anyone. Also its becoming a de facto rule to make any 'fancy' document a PDF anyway. Personally, I prefer PDFs for something that isn't supposed to be edited by anyone else. I can pull this trick off because I can make PDFs free with PDF995, Open Office, or in Linux. Way too many people assume it will cost them $250 for the power of making a pdf and Adobe isn't quick to correct them.
Not to mention the office copier at my only client site is Red Hat based and will take a scanned copy and email you a PDF. Very handy.
What I'm very curious about is will MS make Word be able to open sxw files by default? Perhaps when OO hits critical mass? Something tells me sxw support, if it comes, will be in some hard to find converter pack that asks you for your original office CD.
>People, Windows XP was a home-oriented release to get people off the 9x codebase.
Now you're being naive. MS had no problem pushing 2K out to home users. XP is very much an unneeded revenue generator. It produced a lot of hype, some changes, and made MS a bundle. Remember: MS's greatest competitor is itself, it needs stuff like XP every so often so people see the OS as a premium item that is worth upgrading to the same way Intel markets clock-speed not benchmarks to the home user.
>Every generation goes through the same phases. New and shiny. I'll never change. Remember the good old days. You're in stage 2.
Oh please, don't attribute some hackneyed excuse to a person you don't know. I'm almost 30 and have used home computers since I was a kid. I taught myself basic on a trs-80 and have used and gotten used to something like a dozen different OS's and their variations. Not to mention played with more themes than I care to remember.
XP comes out of the box with common functionality missing: the My X icons. We're not at the point where the average user can go without these. Even the lowliest technophobe will be instructed to do something with these icons when there's a problem or even through normal computer use.
The colors are garish and annoying. That's subjective, but show me a good looking piece of software with contrasting primary colors. There isn't too much out there.
Yes, humans are animals of habit, but there's a big difference between nostalgia and hiding system functionality and a terrible attempt at improving the old desktop model.
This is largely a myth or really a trick of perception. The GUI comes up faster but I still have to wait a while before everything loads and then I can actually use the thing.
Also, this fast GUI launcher breaks PGP. Thanks but no thanks, I'd rather be able to use the free implementation of PGP.
>Better desktop integration with images and sound files
This is a good thing? Yeah, nothing like sitting around waiting for little thumbnails to generate and load up when filenames are all I want. Come on, this is pure fluff. Also this integration can also been seen as WMP bundling. Some people simply don't like a DRM media player running by default.
>UI improvements like most-frequently-used programs instantly available in the start menu, auto hiding of inactive system tray icons, stacking of similar windows in the taskbar when there are lots of windows open
An informal poll of almost all the XP users I know have switched to the classic theme to avoid all this. Whether these are actual UI improvements is questionable and from what I understand of HCI I would say hiding icons and functionality is wrong.
Many people don't need everything bundled with their OS. Free underpowered and largely featureless CD burner, zip app, and firewall? No wonder third-party apps like Norton, Nero, Zonealarm, etc are almost ubiqitious in the Windows world.
> what we now need are cars that merge onto highways for us.
Yes! Yes! But there's so much wasted space between cars on the freeway. What if we attach them all with some kind of coupler. Now refueling them would be a pain, so lets just put electric wires over them and let them feed off the juice. Cars are kinda small and a waste of space, what if we make them more boxy. We can call them box cars or something.
Now all those drivers are wasting their time because you only need one driver to umm conduct all those cars. We'll call him a conductor. Hmm, there might be something to this idea of transportation for the public. I can't think of the right word, but my train of thought is really onto something.
>The desktop will be hardware accelerated DirectX, so eyecandy won't slow things down.
That's not his point, he's suggesting that the new version is eyecandy - not extra functionability. When I use XP I immediatly goto the "classic" theme and make it show the standard desktop icons just to be able to use the damn thing. I certainly am not alone in that regard.
>People always play this card without citing a single example in XP. Can you?
The above. The "are you sure you want to view these system folders" screen. The crippled search option until you change folder options to show "hidden" and system files. The hiding of tray icons, some of the 'inactive' ones are pretty important.
>How do they keep nagging you?
Here's a default Dell computer with Office. Try to just close, let alone remove, messenger. "Sorry, another program is using this." Umm, who? Its outlook, but it won't tell you that. So for millions of people it sits there wasting RAM because they can't close it. More WMP means more browser intgration and DRM. Some people don't like that.
>I'm not having your CD problem at all.
This problem is fairly common and a few good google searches brings up a few solutions.
Regardless, I have yet to see a good reason to move from 2000 to XP. System restore is tempting but not needed. When technophobes ask me why they can't just get Windows 2000, which they know pretty well, on their new computer I tell them its because Microsoft doesn't want them to. Learn XP or find your old 2K CD.
The same could be true for Longhorn, the desktop model of computing is actually pretty simple and more bloat and pretty colors doesn't help - it hinders. I'd rather see effort put into the applications than the OS. Ideally, the OS shouldn't be the selling point, the apps should be. Pretty colors and 3D shouldn't be applauded, good HCI practices should be.
I was just playing with the new google toolbar and it more or less turns IE into something that can compete with the features of Moz/Firebird. It provides a search box, intelligent pop-up blocking, and a right-click option to search Google for outlined text. Google now offers a spyware free version too.
One of the big advanatages for OSS was being able to push through needed features at a fairly quick timetable. Now IE has caught up thanks to google. Still, there's no tabs, the stability is nothing to write home about, and the security holes/ActiveX crap is still there.
I don't see much incentive for MS to improve their browser, it has the marketshare of the gods and the web is maturing technology. I'm sure many people and companies are more interested in seeing if RSS syndication hits critical mass and what's going on in the mobile market. Computers arent selling like hotcakes anymore, uber-phones and PDAs are.
Maybe google can improve some other MS toys. How about the Google PGP toolbar for Outlook/OE? Google holds your public key after you install it and anyone who wants to email you can simply point and click their way to encrypted email with Google branding.
Also, I was just watching the movie on this page and all those moving parts means radar will be bouncing off it like crazy. I would think the military applications of an orinthopter would be very limited.
Not soon, but this will hurt them significantly. I can really see the next version of Windows coming out with some kind of linux emulator so Windows based business can have the best of both worlds. Its the same in the Mac world, they have to emulate Windows too.
Whether this kills Redmond is a tough question. Many CS/IS/IT programs here and abroad are in many ways MS proprietary based, many developers know nothing but windows, etc. I think if MS fails it will be just like when they broke up Ma Bell. It took roughly twenty years before the break-up meant a competing local service provider worth the effort to go with. There's just so much mental wealth infrastructure to dismantle and rebuild first.
The nice thing about these articles is that no matter what OS they go with instead of Windows it means good news for standards. When China, Japan, Russia, Germany, etc are all using non-windows machines then then standardizing protocols will be very, very important thus putting a massive roadblock into MS's only real profitable innovation: embrace, extend, and extringuish. This means more competition, more companies, smaller businesses, and a healthier tech market for all.
>It only would have a crew of 4, and would carry light cargo.
Also, the article mentions NASA would also have to build a different heavy lifter, thus seperating the two technologies. The cheap taxpayer part of me is asking why we don't just use cheap Soyuz tech and rockets for some/most launches.
I wonder if the new heavy launcher that will eventually replace the shuttle will just be a simple rocket like the Europeans and Russians use, not another manned shuttle. If the spaceplane flies there will be no need for a manned huge shuttle/lifter.
The downside is that the science done on the shuttle would be down on a station, for the most part. I don't know if this is a big deal or not or if the space planes cargo section will make this a non-issue.
I like the idea that a spaceplane means that there will have to be a space station of some kind because there wont be enough real estate on the spaceplane to do much. Also, the optimist in me sees this as a logical step towards a permanent moon base.
I don't understand the current obsession with Mars when a moonbase could do so much more, but I'm sure that's a sticking point for many and not something I want to argue. Both would be amazing human accomplishments.
>Along with their free condoms, give 'em free Linux CD
Here's a full blown server OS and with a click of a mouse you can run a dozen different exploitable services and it come with a sniffer! I'm sure there won't be any problems with worms on our campus now.
On the bright side, less computer use, more socializing, and thus more condom use.
I'm sick of this right-wing disinformation campaign too.
>Clinton went through the audit from hell
If the House and Senate weren't controlled by the GOP so would Bush, so right now he's riding high on "party immunity." It won't last forever and 2004 is right around the corner.
Its a server OS that comes bundled with every service imaginable. I can almost picture the parent's IT department. "Yeah we're running redhat behind a firewall so its cool." Actually no, you still need to patch and be just as viligant, if not more so, than using a windows server.
What these "keeping the net healthy with secure computers" arguments come down to isn't really security design or user knowledge as much as it is the number of exploitable services running by default per machine. Imagine if Windows didn't allow file, print, RPC, etc on the WAN connection by default. Or if IIS was a seperate download that when installed also installed autoupdater to patch the machine every so often with.asp off.
Same with any OS. I'll take the "controversial" stand that the net is better off with Windows machines than Linux machines. I've seen the default installs on both and the Linux vendors and distro makers really need to learn what "install only what I need" means.
Most people, even power users, don't need DNS, Samba, telnet, ssh, ftp, etc running by default. Yeah, I know some distros are cracking down on this, but if every windows machine was replaced with a popular linux distro from last year we would probably be in a worse situation than we are in now.
The only saving grace I can think of is the Linux is usually bundled with a firewall, but a lot of good that will do you when the "click-through easy setup" opens all the exploitable ports anyway.
Sure its insecure, but its not going anywhere anytme soon. What to do?
From here. Apologies for the formatting mess, the hyperlink fixes that.
A few very doable fixes to stop most worms and viruses.
1. Microsoft must make their next Service Pack for both XP and 2000 set autoupdate to "install without asking." It should warn the users its doing this so advanced users can disable it.
2. Micosoft should also turn XP's firewall on by default. I believe they are planning on doing this in the near future.
3. MS could develop a "security wizard." Kind of like its Baseline Security tool but for the home user. It runs, sees if your MS networking ports are open to the world, checks to see if you're behind a firewall, etc and gives you tips. It should auto-run every 30 days unless its deactivated.
4. Outlook/Outlook express should refuse to open any attachment that is a true executable or script like exe, vbs, pif, etc. The user should be forced to save the file to his or her hard drive first. This will stop accidental double clicks and give the AV software a chance to scan the file. So instead of "Open this?" the dialog box will say "Where do you want to save this potentially dangerous file?" Also users without AV should be warned by their OS or mailer. "Warning: I can't detect an anti-virus program on your computer!"
5. Corporate networks must block port 25 from the inside. This will keep client computers from become spam machines.
6. Residential ISPs must block all RPC and Windows networking ports. My cable modem provider blocks windows networking and its probably saved us from collapsing more than a couple times over the years. Add ports 135, 445, etc and we'll be sitting pretty. Users can always do HTTP or FTP downloads and uploads.
The bright side of the current situation is that the worse these worms and viruses get the more incentive IT managers have to buy better protection and secure their networks. I'm sure funding to buy an SMS package, AV on the mail server, etc is much easier to get now than it was last week. Not to mention many higher ups want to know why they got 500+ emails during lunch and why their IT department isn't doing anything about it.
The downside is that there's a certain balance to maintain. If worms get worse before security gets better than we might just see a virus with the penetration of SoBig but instead of attacking windowsupdate.com it will corrupt the registry on the local computer, corrupt all documents on all drives (including networked drives), etc on a set date. So far the popular worms and viruses have been very, very benign.
As far as the 'get a Mac' comment goes. Well, the computer I'm using right now has been upgraded to the point where it can't be upgraded any further. My next machine will probably be OSX with this and my laptop running 2K.
Most corporate systems have filtering through subject lines or if they don't the client end sure does. Here are the subject lines you need to filter. A good admin can take care of this in very little time. No need to throw out the baby with the filthy virus infected bathwater.
>There is a large societal change and the 40 hour work week is no more.
Exactly. Consider the 40-hour work week, its completely artificial. Why work so much, or so little? Its a compromise the unions made with big business in the early 20th century based on early 20th century technology and business methods.
Whatever the future holds will be just as artificial. Be it a subsidized lower class without the tech skills neeeded, more people working on civic/government jobs robots simply cannot do, more education jobs, more people getting educated, the "robot manager" career path, more "creative" jobs, less consumerism, etc. Who knows, but social change is here to stay.
It probably just wasn't paying off. The AOL people must be loving this because now its either MSN or AOL not both and guess who has more users and is more mobile friendly? Not to mention if you have a hotmail address and use that as your login you will get painfully spammed, less so with AOL.
Now the question is: will AOL lockout others too or just enjoy its tidy monopoly?
Slashdot Mirror
>I believe teenagers are more impressionable than adults, and we should be careful about their level of violence ingested.
.22-caliber rifle? Seems to me that getting a weapon, making an effort to load it, planning out an attack, and doing it takes a lot of time, thought, will, and complete disdain for your fellow man. Its hard to see how they could be persuaded to do all this by a game.
So the game comes with a
Did it ever occur to you that perhaps they're lying about GTA to get the charges dropped? Do something stupid blame TV, videogames, liberal society, etc and hope you find a sympathetic jury. Its wasn't a bad gambit in conservative Tennessee but it failed, now that they're guilty some opportunist lawyer is trying for a civil suit. May his BS end in failure too.
This is like demanding Enron being removed from the yellowpages. Control search engines and you control the net I guess, this is one of the bigger problems of the DMCA. Linking should not be illegal regardless of the site.
Let them fight their battles, but leave unaffiliated third-parties out of it. Google has nothing to do with kazaalite, google has nothing to do with scientology, etc. You would think a GOP administration would defend business like google and free speech, but the DMCA has yet to be challenged and Ashcroft has no problem using it for his own end.
I don't want a goverment sanitized search engine, I want the rawest information I can get.
Hmm, no glasses, no zits, no 'programmers belly', unthreatening but serious, fit, and wearing a t-shirt that fits with no geek logo?
Sorry ladies, but if this guy exists he probably plays for the other side.
>Hackers highly value their problem solving abilities.
Fine, but a webdav to MAPI connector is hardly an afternoon hack. If it was there would be a free version out there.
Sometimes supporting Linux means buying software.
"So Ted, how much do you think you've spent on linux t-shirts, cups, stickers, etc in the last year?"
*Ted checks thinkgeek reciept*
"Umm, about 100 dollars or so."
"Yet, you wont buy the damn connector?"
*ted stares off into space for a while*
>I didn't have to do a thing because my system updated itself.
t .aspx
Well, now you're out of luck. Joe Sixpack not only needs autoupdate on 24/7 he also needs to visit officeupdate to get the office patches: http://office.microsoft.com/ProductUpdates/defaul
Can MS make this more confusing for the average user? KB824993 and KB826292 do not show on a fresh Windowsupdate.com scan or with the MSBL tool.
Okay, the connector is 69 dollars. Not cheap and not exactly expensive. You're living in a Microsoft world but you like Linux, why not just buy it? At one time in my life I had a nice foreign car and I had to pay extra for parts, labor, etc. To me it was an opportunity cost worth paying for. I didn't want another Chevy so I paid a little extra. In the long run it made me a bit happier and it was nice owning something somewhat rare/different.
Just out of curioustiy: at what price-point will most people in your situation actually buy the dang thing? What if it was 29.99? How cheap are you?
Or better yet why doesn't Ximian offer a student discount?
It blows my mind that hard-core linux types will put 10 hours into figuring out some trivial problem but won't blow 70 dollars on a piece of software that will let them use Exchange.
"So Ted, what did you do today?"
"I wrote a script that gets my email from OWA 2000 and puts it in a comma deliminated file on one of my linux partitions. Then I wrote an app that will take this file and run a fake POP3 server for me to get the emails. Pretty good eh?"
"How much time did you spend on this, Ted?"
"I dunno, 3 or 4 hours."
"Dont you bill $50 an hour."
"Yep."
"Why dont you just buy the damn connector?"
*long pause*
"Cause Stallman says proprietary software is bad? Oh man, I need help."
> Isn't really needed by most people. Most people only use the net for email and some shopping.
Who are these "people?" Certainly they don't have kids, because they would love broadband as it doesn't tie up the phone line. Certainly they aren't working in IT or any job that uses remote access (VPN, etc). Certainly people getting ripped off by AOL who could have an always on connection got just a little more. Certianly not people who watch trailers or actually use their computers by downloading software. Or downloading updates and security patches.
What does that leave us? A total technophobe. Fine, but as the net becomes more of a needed piece of infrastructure the less of those we will have.
When I'm in a position like that I'm thankful everyone can read RTF. Its not feature rich, but it works for just about anyone. Also its becoming a de facto rule to make any 'fancy' document a PDF anyway. Personally, I prefer PDFs for something that isn't supposed to be edited by anyone else. I can pull this trick off because I can make PDFs free with PDF995, Open Office, or in Linux. Way too many people assume it will cost them $250 for the power of making a pdf and Adobe isn't quick to correct them.
Not to mention the office copier at my only client site is Red Hat based and will take a scanned copy and email you a PDF. Very handy.
What I'm very curious about is will MS make Word be able to open sxw files by default? Perhaps when OO hits critical mass? Something tells me sxw support, if it comes, will be in some hard to find converter pack that asks you for your original office CD.
>People, Windows XP was a home-oriented release to get people off the 9x codebase.
Now you're being naive. MS had no problem pushing 2K out to home users. XP is very much an unneeded revenue generator. It produced a lot of hype, some changes, and made MS a bundle. Remember: MS's greatest competitor is itself, it needs stuff like XP every so often so people see the OS as a premium item that is worth upgrading to the same way Intel markets clock-speed not benchmarks to the home user.
That's how you run a profitable monopoly.
See Also: Windows ME
See Also: The Megahertz Myth
>Every generation goes through the same phases. New and shiny. I'll never change. Remember the good old days. You're in stage 2.
Oh please, don't attribute some hackneyed excuse to a person you don't know. I'm almost 30 and have used home computers since I was a kid. I taught myself basic on a trs-80 and have used and gotten used to something like a dozen different OS's and their variations. Not to mention played with more themes than I care to remember.
XP comes out of the box with common functionality missing: the My X icons. We're not at the point where the average user can go without these. Even the lowliest technophobe will be instructed to do something with these icons when there's a problem or even through normal computer use.
The colors are garish and annoying. That's subjective, but show me a good looking piece of software with contrasting primary colors. There isn't too much out there.
Yes, humans are animals of habit, but there's a big difference between nostalgia and hiding system functionality and a terrible attempt at improving the old desktop model.
>Faster boot times
This is largely a myth or really a trick of perception. The GUI comes up faster but I still have to wait a while before everything loads and then I can actually use the thing.
Also, this fast GUI launcher breaks PGP. Thanks but no thanks, I'd rather be able to use the free implementation of PGP.
>Better desktop integration with images and sound files
This is a good thing? Yeah, nothing like sitting around waiting for little thumbnails to generate and load up when filenames are all I want. Come on, this is pure fluff. Also this integration can also been seen as WMP bundling. Some people simply don't like a DRM media player running by default.
>UI improvements like most-frequently-used programs instantly available in the start menu, auto hiding of inactive system tray icons, stacking of similar windows in the taskbar when there are lots of windows open
An informal poll of almost all the XP users I know have switched to the classic theme to avoid all this. Whether these are actual UI improvements is questionable and from what I understand of HCI I would say hiding icons and functionality is wrong.
Many people don't need everything bundled with their OS. Free underpowered and largely featureless CD burner, zip app, and firewall? No wonder third-party apps like Norton, Nero, Zonealarm, etc are almost ubiqitious in the Windows world.
> what we now need are cars that merge onto highways for us.
Yes! Yes! But there's so much wasted space between cars on the freeway. What if we attach them all with some kind of coupler. Now refueling them would be a pain, so lets just put electric wires over them and let them feed off the juice. Cars are kinda small and a waste of space, what if we make them more boxy. We can call them box cars or something.
Now all those drivers are wasting their time because you only need one driver to umm conduct all those cars. We'll call him a conductor. Hmm, there might be something to this idea of transportation for the public. I can't think of the right word, but my train of thought is really onto something.
>The desktop will be hardware accelerated DirectX, so eyecandy won't slow things down.
That's not his point, he's suggesting that the new version is eyecandy - not extra functionability. When I use XP I immediatly goto the "classic" theme and make it show the standard desktop icons just to be able to use the damn thing. I certainly am not alone in that regard.
>People always play this card without citing a single example in XP. Can you?
The above. The "are you sure you want to view these system folders" screen. The crippled search option until you change folder options to show "hidden" and system files. The hiding of tray icons, some of the 'inactive' ones are pretty important.
>How do they keep nagging you?
Here's a default Dell computer with Office. Try to just close, let alone remove, messenger. "Sorry, another program is using this." Umm, who? Its outlook, but it won't tell you that. So for millions of people it sits there wasting RAM because they can't close it. More WMP means more browser intgration and DRM. Some people don't like that.
>I'm not having your CD problem at all.
This problem is fairly common and a few good google searches brings up a few solutions.
Regardless, I have yet to see a good reason to move from 2000 to XP. System restore is tempting but not needed. When technophobes ask me why they can't just get Windows 2000, which they know pretty well, on their new computer I tell them its because Microsoft doesn't want them to. Learn XP or find your old 2K CD.
The same could be true for Longhorn, the desktop model of computing is actually pretty simple and more bloat and pretty colors doesn't help - it hinders. I'd rather see effort put into the applications than the OS. Ideally, the OS shouldn't be the selling point, the apps should be. Pretty colors and 3D shouldn't be applauded, good HCI practices should be.
I was just playing with the new google toolbar and it more or less turns IE into something that can compete with the features of Moz/Firebird. It provides a search box, intelligent pop-up blocking, and a right-click option to search Google for outlined text. Google now offers a spyware free version too.
One of the big advanatages for OSS was being able to push through needed features at a fairly quick timetable. Now IE has caught up thanks to google. Still, there's no tabs, the stability is nothing to write home about, and the security holes/ActiveX crap is still there.
I don't see much incentive for MS to improve their browser, it has the marketshare of the gods and the web is maturing technology. I'm sure many people and companies are more interested in seeing if RSS syndication hits critical mass and what's going on in the mobile market. Computers arent selling like hotcakes anymore, uber-phones and PDAs are.
Maybe google can improve some other MS toys. How about the Google PGP toolbar for Outlook/OE? Google holds your public key after you install it and anyone who wants to email you can simply point and click their way to encrypted email with Google branding.
Also, I was just watching the movie on this page and all those moving parts means radar will be bouncing off it like crazy. I would think the military applications of an orinthopter would be very limited.
>so when is the Redmond ligths out party?
Not soon, but this will hurt them significantly. I can really see the next version of Windows coming out with some kind of linux emulator so Windows based business can have the best of both worlds. Its the same in the Mac world, they have to emulate Windows too.
Whether this kills Redmond is a tough question. Many CS/IS/IT programs here and abroad are in many ways MS proprietary based, many developers know nothing but windows, etc. I think if MS fails it will be just like when they broke up Ma Bell. It took roughly twenty years before the break-up meant a competing local service provider worth the effort to go with. There's just so much mental wealth infrastructure to dismantle and rebuild first.
The nice thing about these articles is that no matter what OS they go with instead of Windows it means good news for standards. When China, Japan, Russia, Germany, etc are all using non-windows machines then then standardizing protocols will be very, very important thus putting a massive roadblock into MS's only real profitable innovation: embrace, extend, and extringuish. This means more competition, more companies, smaller businesses, and a healthier tech market for all.
>It only would have a crew of 4, and would carry light cargo.
Also, the article mentions NASA would also have to build a different heavy lifter, thus seperating the two technologies. The cheap taxpayer part of me is asking why we don't just use cheap Soyuz tech and rockets for some/most launches.
I wonder if the new heavy launcher that will eventually replace the shuttle will just be a simple rocket like the Europeans and Russians use, not another manned shuttle. If the spaceplane flies there will be no need for a manned huge shuttle/lifter.
The downside is that the science done on the shuttle would be down on a station, for the most part. I don't know if this is a big deal or not or if the space planes cargo section will make this a non-issue.
I like the idea that a spaceplane means that there will have to be a space station of some kind because there wont be enough real estate on the spaceplane to do much. Also, the optimist in me sees this as a logical step towards a permanent moon base.
I don't understand the current obsession with Mars when a moonbase could do so much more, but I'm sure that's a sticking point for many and not something I want to argue. Both would be amazing human accomplishments.
>Along with their free condoms, give 'em free Linux CD
Here's a full blown server OS and with a click of a mouse you can run a dozen different exploitable services and it come with a sniffer! I'm sure there won't be any problems with worms on our campus now.
On the bright side, less computer use, more socializing, and thus more condom use.
I'm sick of this right-wing disinformation campaign too.
>Clinton went through the audit from hell
If the House and Senate weren't controlled by the GOP so would Bush, so right now he's riding high on "party immunity." It won't last forever and 2004 is right around the corner.
Its a server OS that comes bundled with every service imaginable. I can almost picture the parent's IT department. "Yeah we're running redhat behind a firewall so its cool." Actually no, you still need to patch and be just as viligant, if not more so, than using a windows server.
.asp off.
What these "keeping the net healthy with secure computers" arguments come down to isn't really security design or user knowledge as much as it is the number of exploitable services running by default per machine. Imagine if Windows didn't allow file, print, RPC, etc on the WAN connection by default. Or if IIS was a seperate download that when installed also installed autoupdater to patch the machine every so often with
Same with any OS. I'll take the "controversial" stand that the net is better off with Windows machines than Linux machines. I've seen the default installs on both and the Linux vendors and distro makers really need to learn what "install only what I need" means.
Most people, even power users, don't need DNS, Samba, telnet, ssh, ftp, etc running by default. Yeah, I know some distros are cracking down on this, but if every windows machine was replaced with a popular linux distro from last year we would probably be in a worse situation than we are in now.
The only saving grace I can think of is the Linux is usually bundled with a firewall, but a lot of good that will do you when the "click-through easy setup" opens all the exploitable ports anyway.
Sure its insecure, but its not going anywhere anytme soon. What to do?
From here. Apologies for the formatting mess, the hyperlink fixes that.
A few very doable fixes to stop most worms and viruses.
1. Microsoft must make their next Service Pack for both XP and 2000 set autoupdate to "install without asking." It should warn the users its doing this so advanced users can disable it.
2. Micosoft should also turn XP's firewall on by default. I believe they are planning on doing this in the near future.
3. MS could develop a "security wizard." Kind of like its Baseline Security tool but for the home user. It runs, sees if your MS networking ports are open to the world, checks to see if you're behind a firewall, etc and gives
you tips. It should auto-run every 30 days unless its deactivated.
4. Outlook/Outlook express should refuse to open any attachment that is a
true executable or script like exe, vbs, pif, etc. The user should be forced to save the file to his or her hard drive first. This will stop
accidental double clicks and give the AV software a chance to scan the file.
So instead of "Open this?" the dialog box will say "Where do you want to save this potentially dangerous file?" Also users without AV should be
warned by their OS or mailer. "Warning: I can't detect an anti-virus program on your computer!"
5. Corporate networks must block port 25 from the inside. This will keep client computers from become spam machines.
6. Residential ISPs must block all RPC and Windows networking ports. My cable modem provider blocks windows networking and its probably saved us
from collapsing more than a couple times over the years. Add ports 135, 445, etc and we'll be sitting pretty. Users can always do HTTP or FTP downloads and uploads.
The bright side of the current situation is that the worse these worms and viruses get the more incentive IT managers have to buy better protection and secure their networks. I'm sure funding to buy an SMS package, AV on the mail
server, etc is much easier to get now than it was last week. Not to mention many higher ups want to know why they got 500+ emails during lunch and why
their IT department isn't doing anything about it.
The downside is that there's a certain balance to maintain. If worms get worse before security gets better than we might just see a virus with the
penetration of SoBig but instead of attacking windowsupdate.com it will corrupt the registry on the local computer, corrupt all documents on all
drives (including networked drives), etc on a set date. So far the popular worms and viruses have been very, very benign.
As far as the 'get a Mac' comment goes. Well, the computer I'm using right now has been upgraded to the point where it can't be upgraded any further.
My next machine will probably be OSX with this and my laptop running 2K.
Most corporate systems have filtering through subject lines or if they don't the client end sure does. Here are the subject lines you need to filter. A good admin can take care of this in very little time. No need to throw out the baby with the filthy virus infected bathwater.
>There is a large societal change and the 40 hour work week is no more.
Exactly. Consider the 40-hour work week, its completely artificial. Why work so much, or so little? Its a compromise the unions made with big business in the early 20th century based on early 20th century technology and business methods.
Whatever the future holds will be just as artificial. Be it a subsidized lower class without the tech skills neeeded, more people working on civic/government jobs robots simply cannot do, more education jobs, more people getting educated, the "robot manager" career path, more "creative" jobs, less consumerism, etc. Who knows, but social change is here to stay.
>What happend to being open and cooperative?
It probably just wasn't paying off. The AOL people must be loving this because now its either MSN or AOL not both and guess who has more users and is more mobile friendly? Not to mention if you have a hotmail address and use that as your login you will get painfully spammed, less so with AOL.
Now the question is: will AOL lockout others too or just enjoy its tidy monopoly?
> I can finally connect my computer to... uhh... to my uhh..
Just say it, we know you want to: Penis.