If you read the article, he describes how he 'reduced the security level' of IE, and got saddled with spyware. Sounds like driving a car into a concrete barrier at 200 mph a la Princess Di and expecting to live. I've used IE since 1999. NOT ONCE have i been subject to spyware or anything else. It's a question of safe surfing habits. If you insist on visiting seedy websites that pop up activex warnings-and then moronically click ok, what else can you expect? (The fact that some of these things install themselves without asking further proves why it's better to avoid going to such sites) If you enter a disreputable neighborhood late at night, you're asking to be mugged. Fine. So maybe Homer Simpson wouldn't know (or be expected to, in today's world) how to bulletproof his browser. This article seems to be written by a self confessed tester of browsers-someone presumably with an IQ higher than Homer Simpson. If you haven't heard of Spybot or other spyware removal tools, and have to lose your data to set it right, who's being a doofus now? I'm not trying to defend IE here. But to again sit and rant against MS because of one's own incompetence in basic security practices, build up the paranoia about 'Longhorn destroying the web as we know it', 'this is a fight for survival of the web itself' is pure bullshit.
Alright. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse it did. So now even the hardware we use is gradually coming under the DRM brigade. Let's look at things this way: What is it that the RIAA etc are so desperately trying to defend? The copyright to their precious(ssss!) content-the likes of Britney Spears and others of their ilk, from being stolen by dirty, MP3 swapping, CD burning thieves (namely us).
More than once, people have called for a boycott of all the precious content, and sock it to them.
I see an alternative here: underground music and movies. We have the technology and the tools. If they're gonna protect their content from us, hell, we'll create our own. I've heard people complain about awful amateur music and stuff, but you can bet on it, the masses are going to produce their own stars, if not now then someday.
I cannot say when, but the future is definitely going to see music, art and cinema for the people and BY the people.
The RIAA can keep their DRMfied formats, and stick it in $INTERESTING_PLACE
Look at the Grateful Dead. They encouraged people to copy their songs, and it didn't hurt them in any way-people still went in droves to attend their concerts.(That they were a very talented band also helps:) )
We just need some mainstream musicians to support the cause,(unlikely as it may seem), or else, some previously unknown singer should hit the big time, to start the trend.
This could be a step towards *TRUE* online democracy-where all sorts of content is by and for the people.
Your point about preventing currency editing is quite valid. It would still take QUITE some time before more 'secure forms of currency' as you put it are adopted. Rather than wait around for this to happen, preventing currency editing will at least prevent all but those few who are savvy enough to circumvent it from using it to print counterfeit money. How many people really need to edit currency notes for legitimate purposes? (I don't know, im curious myself)
Agreed, the issue is about free as in freedom. Then again, if i am a graphics designer and a photoshop expert, or a professional photographer, what value is the source code of gimp to me? I need an application that can do my image editing/filters or whatever (please, i know squat about graphics design per se), and not have to sit and look at its source code. After all, all the end users of these products are not programmers, or hardcore linux fans that they would be equally proficient in programming as well as graphic design. Sure, there ARE such people, and i'm sure there are lots who are wizards at both, but the major users of photoshop (ie those who use it to earn a living) don't have the time for poring over source code.
Now (in the context of the guy who wrote the gimp review),
1) I don't care if its beer-free, I can afford to pay for Photoshop/I or my company have/has a license for it
2) 'Free as in freedom' again means nothing to me-I'm not a programmer, I'm a graphics designer.I can't code in C/Perl/Python or any other language that you mentioned save my life, much less sit and tweak GIMP and (if required) recompile it to suit my needs. I need reliable tech support immediately when required, that I don't mind paying for (even the one the OP paid for, for GIMP, sucked according to him)
The upshot is-while open source is all very well and noble,non technical users-who unfortunately or fortunately are the majority segment for most end user commercial software- want to get up and running using their software to get their work done. You or I might get a kick out of compiling open source software, writing scripts or modifying the kernel or whatever-it's unfair to expect ordinary people to be able to do something remotely similar before they can use their software. The only way open source can ever displace proprietary software is-
(Ignore whats below if you are the kind who programs for fun and feels end users should be grateful for getting to use your software for free, and 'take it or leave it' )
1) develop an empathy for your target segment-non techie end users, and try and make things easy for them to use
2) Provide prompt and quick technical support when required.
Like i said, the two comments above are for all those who dream of Linux or open source displacing microsoft and other companies any time soon.
People use things that they value, if you want them to use your product, find out what they value and figure out a way to give it (or sell it,as might be the case) to them-and having support for 5 scripting languages may not be what the non technical majority wants.
That is one hell of a misquoted proverb...
it should read 'The LOVE of money can't buy you happiness'
It is targeted at misers, those who hoard money instead of spending it on the things that can make them happy
Let me answer that, as another resident Indian. With the earlier system, for one thing, counting is a mammoth task, given the total number of votes. Moreover, in several of the backward districts, booth-capturing, where goons hired by candidates disrupt the poll centres, even threatening voters to vote for a particular candidate, or forcibly stealing ballot paper and boxes and filling them and stuffing them (!!) has ocurred. These voting machines are more or less tamper proof: a vote once recorded on an EPROM remains there. Sure, you could probably open it up and reverse engineer it, or erase the EPROM-but thats more than you can expect from the illiterate thugs who are usually hired to do these things. Admittedly-during these elections, such incidents haven't ocurred so far. Instead-some candidates may resort to fooling illiterate voters-eg 'press any other button than the one for me and you will be electrocuted' or 'only press the button with the stoned monkey drawn on it' In the long run, the new system far surpasses the old one, both for faster counting and reliability.
From what i've seen of american schools as shown in movies and serials-kids there seem to get away with things that would result in instant expulsion from schools in India where i live. Wheter it's such regulars as 'the school bully' or the general way in which kids appear to slouch around in class (i dont know how far this is true-this is based on hearsay)-but here-a kid found extorting money from smaller kids, or unnecessarily picking fights, etc has his parents summoned, or is suspended or even thrown out on repeat offenses. And no, we don't go openly disrespecting teachers. Perhaps it's a cultural thing. And no-we definitely do not have a culture of looking down upon smart kids. Other posters have argued that kids should take responsibility for their studies etc. I feel that such an attitude has to be fostered right from the beginning by their parents. Most middle class indians value a good education above anything else in life-and parents too exhort their children to take their studies seriously from an early age. Most kids manage to balance their studies with their social and fun life very well too. I'd say a few social norms over there need changing, and for a start parents of young kids can start supervising their homework and inculcating the habit of regular studies in their kids.
Why don't you show her AiRoboForm? It remembers passwords just like Gator, but minus the spyware. Infact, its interface etc is also similar to Gator, and can even import your passwords and settings from gator if you were using that! Paying for the registered version lets you save more passwords than the standard one, and i think it also uses a higher encryption level to store them.
If a nation's government is benefitting only a small elite at the expense of all other citizens (for example, by allowing its corporations to ship jobs to other countries), then it's time to get a new government.
The problem here is-globalization is slowly eroding the concept of a 'nation.' When you have free movement of capital and goods, these will always flow to where its cheapest or easiest to produce. Look at some american brands-that were complete cultural icons for the rest of the world-Levi's, Nike, Ford-all of these are being made in other places now. Where something is produced is increasingly getting irrelevant.
Europe has already achieved economic unity...in a short while, political unity may well happen. It does sound like anathema now-all the values of patriotism and national pride may have to bow down to this kind of world order...but just imagine-(ok, this sounds wacky)-suppose we were officially contacted by intelligent aliens-how would they consider us? As a mass of separate countries, or as one united sentient species like themselves?
Way i see it..maybe in a centuries' time-we might well have one world, one government...
I live in New Delhi, India-where summer temperatures of 45C are not uncommon. We have what we call 'desert coolers', which are much better than ACs for cooling. Imagine a large metal box with a big fan on one side and straw mats on the other three-which are wetted by water drawn up from the tank below by a pump. The air sucked in by the fan evaps the water, losing heat in the process, and becoming quite cool. I have a large one at home-and I've observed the room temp drop to 22-23C when its above 40 outside. This stuff consumes about 10-20% of the power consumed by an AC-so it's quite good. (power consumption depends on the wattage of the fan, u can put as powerful a fan as you like). They are also quite cheap to make, and it's almost like a cottage industry here-every summer, local shops stock these coolers in various sizes-huge 8' high ones with industrial grade exhaust fans, to cool large areas, to dinky little 'personal coolers'. However, during the monsoons, or rainy weather-the humidity renders them useless, as evaporation on the straw mats reduces. Oh, and clay pots have been used in India too, for generations, for keeping water cool-though not in the way mentioned.
I haven't had my browser defaced by ads in years..
on
New Wave of Web Ads?
·
· Score: 1
Ok-get this-I've been using IE for the last 5 years (yeah, flamebait i know), also Opera-and ads i see are few and far between:
My hosts file has about 10,000 entries,most of the adservers are killed off straight away.
Since I'm on Windows, I've been using Atguard-the now defunct firewall with excellent sitewise ad blocking, and more recently, Admuncher. Between the three of them-I get pages that are swept clean of ads, and I've never had to deal with the driveby activex variety either...
Atguard may be found on some warez forums-and Admuncher is $30 shareware-but can someone tell me if they use the third option-of the hosts file?
Funny no one here seems to have mentioned using it..one of the cheapest and simplest way of getting rid of ads by mapping all known servers to localhost...
like hell indians don't 'contribute' back! Come to India and see the number of American brands that are consumed here. Kids here too wear Levis, eat at McDonalds and drink Coke and Pepsi. Infact, with a new generation of kids in their early twenties earning lucrative (by local standards) salaries, they are only spending more and more on American brands. If that's not contributing back to the US economy, what is?
I got bad news for you...medical outsourcing of a sort is already happening. The UK sends patients on its National Health scheme to India for treatment, because you can get excellent bypass surgery and post operative care here for a fraction of the cost in the UK. And as per an article in a local mag (no online edition, so no URL, sorry) more and more people are coming here for treatment from other countries because it's cheaper. So well...guess it's a matter of time before that happens in the US also....
Slashdot Mirror
If you read the article, he describes how he 'reduced the security level' of IE, and got saddled with spyware. Sounds like driving a car into a concrete barrier at 200 mph a la Princess Di and expecting to live.
I've used IE since 1999. NOT ONCE have i been subject to spyware or anything else. It's a question of safe surfing habits. If you insist on visiting seedy websites that pop up activex warnings-and then moronically click ok, what else can you expect? (The fact that some of these things install themselves without asking further proves why it's better to avoid going to such sites) If you enter a disreputable neighborhood late at night, you're asking to be mugged.
Fine. So maybe Homer Simpson wouldn't know (or be expected to, in today's world) how to bulletproof his browser. This article seems to be written by a self confessed tester of browsers-someone presumably with an IQ higher than Homer Simpson. If you haven't heard of Spybot or other spyware removal tools, and have to lose your data to set it right, who's being a doofus now?
I'm not trying to defend IE here. But to again sit and rant against MS because of one's own incompetence in basic security practices, build up the paranoia about 'Longhorn destroying the web as we know it', 'this is a fight for survival of the web itself'
is pure bullshit.
Alright. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse it did. So now even the hardware we use is gradually coming under the DRM brigade. Let's look at things this way: What is it that the RIAA etc are so desperately trying to defend? The copyright to their precious(ssss!) content-the likes of Britney Spears and others of their ilk, from being stolen by dirty, MP3 swapping, CD burning thieves (namely us). More than once, people have called for a boycott of all the precious content, and sock it to them. I see an alternative here: underground music and movies. We have the technology and the tools. If they're gonna protect their content from us, hell, we'll create our own. I've heard people complain about awful amateur music and stuff, but you can bet on it, the masses are going to produce their own stars, if not now then someday. I cannot say when, but the future is definitely going to see music, art and cinema for the people and BY the people. The RIAA can keep their DRMfied formats, and stick it in $INTERESTING_PLACE Look at the Grateful Dead. They encouraged people to copy their songs, and it didn't hurt them in any way-people still went in droves to attend their concerts.(That they were a very talented band also helps :) )
We just need some mainstream musicians to support the cause,(unlikely as it may seem), or else, some previously unknown singer should hit the big time, to start the trend.
This could be a step towards *TRUE* online democracy-where all sorts of content is by and for the people.
Your point about preventing currency editing is quite valid. It would still take QUITE some time before more 'secure forms of currency' as you put it are adopted. Rather than wait around for this to happen, preventing currency editing will at least prevent all but those few who are savvy enough to circumvent it from using it to print counterfeit money. How many people really need to edit currency notes for legitimate purposes? (I don't know, im curious myself) Agreed, the issue is about free as in freedom. Then again, if i am a graphics designer and a photoshop expert, or a professional photographer, what value is the source code of gimp to me? I need an application that can do my image editing/filters or whatever (please, i know squat about graphics design per se), and not have to sit and look at its source code. After all, all the end users of these products are not programmers, or hardcore linux fans that they would be equally proficient in programming as well as graphic design. Sure, there ARE such people, and i'm sure there are lots who are wizards at both, but the major users of photoshop (ie those who use it to earn a living) don't have the time for poring over source code. Now (in the context of the guy who wrote the gimp review), 1) I don't care if its beer-free, I can afford to pay for Photoshop/I or my company have/has a license for it 2) 'Free as in freedom' again means nothing to me-I'm not a programmer, I'm a graphics designer.I can't code in C/Perl/Python or any other language that you mentioned save my life, much less sit and tweak GIMP and (if required) recompile it to suit my needs. I need reliable tech support immediately when required, that I don't mind paying for (even the one the OP paid for, for GIMP, sucked according to him) The upshot is-while open source is all very well and noble,non technical users-who unfortunately or fortunately are the majority segment for most end user commercial software- want to get up and running using their software to get their work done. You or I might get a kick out of compiling open source software, writing scripts or modifying the kernel or whatever-it's unfair to expect ordinary people to be able to do something remotely similar before they can use their software. The only way open source can ever displace proprietary software is- (Ignore whats below if you are the kind who programs for fun and feels end users should be grateful for getting to use your software for free, and 'take it or leave it' ) 1) develop an empathy for your target segment-non techie end users, and try and make things easy for them to use 2) Provide prompt and quick technical support when required. Like i said, the two comments above are for all those who dream of Linux or open source displacing microsoft and other companies any time soon. People use things that they value, if you want them to use your product, find out what they value and figure out a way to give it (or sell it,as might be the case) to them-and having support for 5 scripting languages may not be what the non technical majority wants.
I've used MyIE2-tabbed IE browser with popup and content filtering, and boy, does it work!
its freeware from www.myie2.com
That is one hell of a misquoted proverb... it should read 'The LOVE of money can't buy you happiness' It is targeted at misers, those who hoard money instead of spending it on the things that can make them happy
Let me answer that, as another resident Indian. With the earlier system, for one thing, counting is a mammoth task, given the total number of votes. Moreover, in several of the backward districts, booth-capturing, where goons hired by candidates disrupt the poll centres, even threatening voters to vote for a particular candidate, or forcibly stealing ballot paper and boxes and filling them and stuffing them (!!) has ocurred. These voting machines are more or less tamper proof: a vote once recorded on an EPROM remains there. Sure, you could probably open it up and reverse engineer it, or erase the EPROM-but thats more than you can expect from the illiterate thugs who are usually hired to do these things.
Admittedly-during these elections, such incidents haven't ocurred so far. Instead-some candidates may resort to fooling illiterate voters-eg 'press any other button than the one for me and you will be electrocuted' or 'only press the button with the stoned monkey drawn on it'
In the long run, the new system far surpasses the old one, both for faster counting and reliability.
From what i've seen of american schools as shown in movies and serials-kids there seem to get away with things that would result in instant expulsion from schools in India where i live. Wheter it's such regulars as 'the school bully' or the general way in which kids appear to slouch around in class (i dont know how far this is true-this is based on hearsay)-but here-a kid found extorting money from smaller kids, or unnecessarily picking fights, etc has his parents summoned, or is suspended or even thrown out on repeat offenses. And no, we don't go openly disrespecting teachers. Perhaps it's a cultural thing. And no-we definitely do not have a culture of looking down upon smart kids. Other posters have argued that kids should take responsibility for their studies etc. I feel that such an attitude has to be fostered right from the beginning by their parents. Most middle class indians value a good education above anything else in life-and parents too exhort their children to take their studies seriously from an early age. Most kids manage to balance their studies with their social and fun life very well too. I'd say a few social norms over there need changing, and for a start parents of young kids can start supervising their homework and inculcating the habit of regular studies in their kids.
Why don't you show her AiRoboForm? It remembers passwords just like Gator, but minus the spyware. Infact, its interface etc is also similar to Gator, and can even import your passwords and settings from gator if you were using that! Paying for the registered version lets you save more passwords than the standard one, and i think it also uses a higher encryption level to store them.
If a nation's government is benefitting only a small elite at the expense of all other citizens (for example, by allowing its corporations to ship jobs to other countries), then it's time to get a new government. The problem here is-globalization is slowly eroding the concept of a 'nation.' When you have free movement of capital and goods, these will always flow to where its cheapest or easiest to produce. Look at some american brands-that were complete cultural icons for the rest of the world-Levi's, Nike, Ford-all of these are being made in other places now. Where something is produced is increasingly getting irrelevant. Europe has already achieved economic unity...in a short while, political unity may well happen. It does sound like anathema now-all the values of patriotism and national pride may have to bow down to this kind of world order...but just imagine-(ok, this sounds wacky)-suppose we were officially contacted by intelligent aliens-how would they consider us? As a mass of separate countries, or as one united sentient species like themselves? Way i see it..maybe in a centuries' time-we might well have one world, one government...
I live in New Delhi, India-where summer temperatures of 45C are not uncommon. We have what we call 'desert coolers', which are much better than ACs for cooling. Imagine a large metal box with a big fan on one side and straw mats on the other three-which are wetted by water drawn up from the tank below by a pump. The air sucked in by the fan evaps the water, losing heat in the process, and becoming quite cool. I have a large one at home-and I've observed the room temp drop to 22-23C when its above 40 outside. This stuff consumes about 10-20% of the power consumed by an AC-so it's quite good. (power consumption depends on the wattage of the fan, u can put as powerful a fan as you like). They are also quite cheap to make, and it's almost like a cottage industry here-every summer, local shops stock these coolers in various sizes-huge 8' high ones with industrial grade exhaust fans, to cool large areas, to dinky little 'personal coolers'.
However, during the monsoons, or rainy weather-the humidity renders them useless, as evaporation on the straw mats reduces.
Oh, and clay pots have been used in India too, for generations, for keeping water cool-though not in the way mentioned.
Ok-get this-I've been using IE for the last 5 years (yeah, flamebait i know), also Opera-and ads i see are few and far between: My hosts file has about 10,000 entries,most of the adservers are killed off straight away. Since I'm on Windows, I've been using Atguard-the now defunct firewall with excellent sitewise ad blocking, and more recently, Admuncher. Between the three of them-I get pages that are swept clean of ads, and I've never had to deal with the driveby activex variety either... Atguard may be found on some warez forums-and Admuncher is $30 shareware-but can someone tell me if they use the third option-of the hosts file? Funny no one here seems to have mentioned using it..one of the cheapest and simplest way of getting rid of ads by mapping all known servers to localhost...
like hell indians don't 'contribute' back! Come to India and see the number of American brands that are consumed here. Kids here too wear Levis, eat at McDonalds and drink Coke and Pepsi. Infact, with a new generation of kids in their early twenties earning lucrative (by local standards) salaries, they are only spending more and more on American brands. If that's not contributing back to the US economy, what is?
The fact that he made a million off spam and got himself a Porsche shows how many doofuses are out there who actually buy whats advertised on spam!
I got bad news for you...medical outsourcing of a sort is already happening. The UK sends patients on its National Health scheme to India for treatment, because you can get excellent bypass surgery and post operative care here for a fraction of the cost in the UK. And as per an article in a local mag (no online edition, so no URL, sorry) more and more people are coming here for treatment from other countries because it's cheaper. So well...guess it's a matter of time before that happens in the US also....