Well, I use my powerbook as my main machine. All my development is done on this, so more power would be very nice. I know several people that have a big monitor and external keyboard. When they are home, they connect the monitor, keyboard and mouse, close the lid on the laptop and press a key on the keyboard. Voila, the powerbook uses the nice big monitor just fine and so instant desktop.
I'll take as much power as I can get in my laptop, as long as I don't also sacrifice portability and battery life beyond reason, for some value of reason.
The problem is that IBM didn't leave the hardware open. They built it out of commodity parts, but the BIOS was closed. Thanks to Compaq and clean-room cloning, the first IBM PC clones were released that didn't use an IBM BIOS. IBM didn't like this, but they couldn't stop it. I think IBM would have been happy to remain the only supplier of IBM PC compatible machines. They certainly took a bath when the likes of Compaq, Dell, Gateway 2000, etc. showed up.
I think it was probably just easier to clone the PC because the only proprietary component was a bit of software on a rom, versus the much more tightly engineered Mac hardware with it's funky floppy controller and all that other custom hardware.
Yeah, but if you've ever looked at the assembly code for SQL server, you'll realize that it's still sybase with many hacked in patches. How can you tell? If you've ever looked at compiled C code you NEVER see long unconditional jumps, while SQL server has many many unconditional jumps 1 Meg down in the code and then an unconditional jump back to the same spot. Alot of that stuff hacks in the loading of external DLL's so that they can add functionality written in a HLL, instead of assembly.
So, instead of actually starting from scratch and writing their own, they blew off Sybase, reverse engineered the BINARY, and hacked in new functionality.
No wonder that piece of trash has so many security holes.
Yes, I've noticed that the caller ID has started showing foreign phone numbers like Canada and these have been telemarketing calls. Can't enforce a US law in a Foreign country. I just never answer calls that I don't recognize. If it's someone I know, they can leave a message.
I guess international calling rates have gotten so low that calling from overseas isn't cost prohibitive.
You can also change the where by changing where you work and not the job. I have a different situation, my wife has to go for medical treatment for a half a day each week, and so my company has come up with work that I can do at home or on the road. I just bring the laptop with me and program away.
It also enables me to put hours in at nights and on weekends which would otherwise be downtime. This has saved me from having to use up all my vacation just for medical reasons.
And you didn't even get how it worked. The card you were given is a token, nothing more. the machine stores the votes internally, on a flash card that is behind a little locked door.
That card is reset with a password to allow you to access the machine and tells the machine what your party affiliation is, if you want english or spanish, if you are blind, etc.
Of course, without a receipt or some sort of printout, you don't know if your ballot was recorded. You don't even know if you get a receipt, but at least if there's a question of accuracy, they can recount the receipts separately from the machine,
Well, I see that you are reading an awful lot into my comment. I happen to be a big fan of OSS and use it all the time.
I just get tired of seeing these projects that are simply a copy of what's been done before. To me this is a total waste of time and effort.
Windows isn't that great. In fact it sucks. And OS X isn't the be all and end all of operating systems either.
Sure, there are some original things being done out there, but it seems to me that the vast amount is just a rehashing of old stuff or a "let's just copy how Windows does it."
Microsoft has poor designers who just try to cram features into software and bloat things beyond belief. Most OSS suffers from the same thing, simply because you have alot of people trying to make their mark.
I'm getting tired of open source projects just copying ideas from commercial software.
Linux -> Unix, KDE, Gnome, Nautilus -> windows, MacOS, Open Office -> MS Office.
After a while it gets tiresome. I'd like to see something from O/S that is newer/better rather than just copies and maybe some refinement but no real new ideas.
Today, the Ohio Secretary of State released this report critiquing the RABA report, which essentialy says that Diebold has fixed all the problems and there is nothing new, nothing more to fix. What a bunch of garbage.
One of our team spoke to the minority leader of the Ohio Senate, and she is very upset that they are using extreme political pressure to get Ohio counties to use Diebold no matter what.
Mike Wertheimer, our team leader in our original test, will be on ABC news tomorrow morning and CBS news tomorrow night. Look for it.
And, suprise surprise, Mac OS X uses CUPS under the cover for printing. All you have to do is select "printer sharing" on the sharing preference pane and the printer shows up on other people's machines. You may not like Macs, I really don't care if you do or not. But there's a lesson here.
I have a friend who had access to the source in his last job and he told me that it is 300GB. So if this thing that's floating around is any less than that it can't be the entire source, or it's a fake.
You make valid points. But the tamper tape is better than not knowing. The election judges can simply inspect the internal tape, and if it's intact, reapply new tape to the outside. Clearly, policies need to be in place to handle the inevitable messed up tape. Perhaps it will help highlight the risks that were previously going unnoticed.
We had to deal with a situation where there was no alternative to the existing Diebold machines and a primary in a few weeks. None of this was our choice.
A much better solution would be to improve the locks and alarm the doors. They are really poor at this point, with one key for all the machines in the state, and pickable in a short time. Even the NPR reporter was able to pick the lock in less than a minute. Perhaps some sort of interlock so that you have to be logged on as a supervisor (given a decently secure smart card authentication unlike what they have now) in order for the locks to even operate. There is no perfect solution, however.
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I'll take as much power as I can get in my laptop, as long as I don't also sacrifice portability and battery life beyond reason, for some value of reason.
Paul
I have a Mirra and it's great. Worth every penny, if just for the way it reclines. You lean back, but your feet stay solidly on the floor.
Paul
The problem is that IBM didn't leave the hardware open. They built it out of commodity parts, but the BIOS was closed. Thanks to Compaq and clean-room cloning, the first IBM PC clones were released that didn't use an IBM BIOS. IBM didn't like this, but they couldn't stop it. I think IBM would have been happy to remain the only supplier of IBM PC compatible machines. They certainly took a bath when the likes of Compaq, Dell, Gateway 2000, etc. showed up.
I think it was probably just easier to clone the PC because the only proprietary component was a bit of software on a rom, versus the much more tightly engineered Mac hardware with it's funky floppy controller and all that other custom hardware.
Paul
So, instead of actually starting from scratch and writing their own, they blew off Sybase, reverse engineered the BINARY, and hacked in new functionality.
No wonder that piece of trash has so many security holes.
Yes, I've noticed that the caller ID has started showing foreign phone numbers like Canada and these have been telemarketing calls. Can't enforce a US law in a Foreign country. I just never answer calls that I don't recognize. If it's someone I know, they can leave a message.
I guess international calling rates have gotten so low that calling from overseas isn't cost prohibitive.
Paul
You can also change the where by changing where you work and not the job. I have a different situation, my wife has to go for medical treatment for a half a day each week, and so my company has come up with work that I can do at home or on the road. I just bring the laptop with me and program away. It also enables me to put hours in at nights and on weekends which would otherwise be downtime. This has saved me from having to use up all my vacation just for medical reasons.
That card is reset with a password to allow you to access the machine and tells the machine what your party affiliation is, if you want english or spanish, if you are blind, etc.
Of course, without a receipt or some sort of printout, you don't know if your ballot was recorded. You don't even know if you get a receipt, but at least if there's a question of accuracy, they can recount the receipts separately from the machine,
Well, I see that you are reading an awful lot into my comment. I happen to be a big fan of OSS and use it all the time.
I just get tired of seeing these projects that are simply a copy of what's been done before. To me this is a total waste of time and effort.
Windows isn't that great. In fact it sucks. And OS X isn't the be all and end all of operating systems either.
Sure, there are some original things being done out there, but it seems to me that the vast amount is just a rehashing of old stuff or a "let's just copy how Windows does it."
Microsoft has poor designers who just try to cram features into software and bloat things beyond belief. Most OSS suffers from the same thing, simply because you have alot of people trying to make their mark.
I'm getting tired of open source projects just copying ideas from commercial software.
Linux -> Unix,
KDE, Gnome, Nautilus -> windows, MacOS,
Open Office -> MS Office.
After a while it gets tiresome. I'd like to see something from O/S that is newer/better rather than just copies and maybe some refinement but no real new ideas.
One of our team spoke to the minority leader of the Ohio Senate, and she is very upset that they are using extreme political pressure to get Ohio counties to use Diebold no matter what.
Mike Wertheimer, our team leader in our original test, will be on ABC news tomorrow morning and CBS news tomorrow night. Look for it.
And, suprise surprise, Mac OS X uses CUPS under the cover for printing. All you have to do is select "printer sharing" on the sharing preference pane and the printer shows up on other people's machines. You may not like Macs, I really don't care if you do or not. But there's a lesson here.
Paul
Voting Server Windows 2000. Windows not patched up to current standards, not locked down AT ALL.
Truly scary.
We had to deal with a situation where there was no alternative to the existing Diebold machines and a primary in a few weeks. None of this was our choice.
A much better solution would be to improve the locks and alarm the doors. They are really poor at this point, with one key for all the machines in the state, and pickable in a short time. Even the NPR reporter was able to pick the lock in less than a minute. Perhaps some sort of interlock so that you have to be logged on as a supervisor (given a decently secure smart card authentication unlike what they have now) in order for the locks to even operate. There is no perfect solution, however.
Paul
They do use SSL. They just do it wrong so that it's vulnerable to a man in the middle attack. Encryption without authentication. Worthless.
OOPS, forgot to preview. A link to the report.
I'm one of the people who did this and you should take a look at the acutal report before you start ranting.
That's why, if you read the report, it was recommended to put tamper tape inside the locked door as well as outside.