I completely agree with the parent post. The iPod is a fantastic consumer electronics device, but I believe that apple's operating system and hardware combination is really what makes me want to ditch my WinXP laptop. I've been saving money to buy a 12" iBook after getting tired of being jealous of all the other people in my CS lectures that had one.
Yes Steve Jobs, are you listening? Computer Science majors like your laptops. We got tired of Sony Vaio's, Dells, Gateways, and all the other poorly built laptops, when all we wanted was a machine that's unix friendly development environment, and still focuses on what's important in a laptop: build quality and battery life!
It's not that I'm a mac fanboy or anything, I just got tired of all the hassles that comes along with a laptop tied to WinXP (and no, Linux on laptops isn't a hassle free option....yet.)
My belief for securing access points in this day and age is to just make yourself secure enough that the attacker decides that it'd just be easier to look for an unsecured AP. If you have such critical information on your network that you need super-secure wireless access, you probably shouldn't be using wireless in the first place.
Casual war-driving studies have been done in the past, and if I remember correctly, on average 60% of APs that were broadcasting were still in their default out-of-box configuration (no WAP, no MAC filtering, default password for adminstration). If you just enable WAP (please use a good random key generator, folks), and MAC filtering, more than likely it just won't be worth it for somebody to try to break in to access your network.
Also, just in case somebody does break into your AP and does something nasty, this is what the daily logs are for, so enable logging on your AP and back them up to disk regularly. Because, yes, you are responsible what goes through your connection, so you better be able to prove there was unauthorized entry, limiting your liability.
Yes, but there comes a point when you get such a large volume of calls from your less technical friends and family that it is no longer "doing someone a favor" and moves into the realm of "fulltime tech support". Then yes, you need to start charging...in the case of friends and family, this usually isn't in the form of money. More along the lines of free food & beer or some other form of bartering.
Yes, it would be downright wrong to hand your mother a printed bill, but if you're going to be spending the better part of your weekend helping a friend set up a home network, it starts to factor into the realm of opportunity cost.
Check out Phlak.
It's fairly polished and can be used for a whole lot more than just removing spyware. I'd highly suggest checking it out.
Oh, and it uses XFce4, which I think is just a damn cool alternative to KDE and Gnome. XFce4 + Slackware 9.1 is a great combination for older computers that just get bogged down by KDE and Gnome.
It's encouraging to see unemployeed techs finally taking advantage of all that time they spent fixing friends computers for free. I know I'm usually the first one several of my friends and family call when their computer starts acting weird, and all they want to do is send email.
Now if somebody was really smart, they'd find a way to get partnered with the local Best Buy and could probably turn it into a full time job. You'd be amazed at how much people are willing to pay if you can bring some sanity to their assorted home electronics. My mom loves the 3 page FAQ I made for her that goes step by step how to do everything with the home theatre system my Dad has. She used to not watch any DVDs just because she was scared to touch anything.
A nice fool proof system, while a bit of a hassle, would effectly remove spam. PGP uses a white list of sorts, that only allows people to send you encrypted messages that have your public key. This in a sense could be done with email. Someone wants to send you an email, and has your email address. They send the small request to your mail server (1-2 KB in size) with their name, email address, and name of their mail server. The mail server holds this information and notifies you that a new sender is awaiting access. You then:
1. Verify the identity of the sender, okay then, and the sender is then given the return request, and is notified that they will be allowed to send emails.
2. Deny the sender, and all their emails will be bounced back.
Yes, spoofing problems still exist, but this system could be expanded, and guess what, you only recieve email from people you want to, and the mail server acts at the first point of defense.
This would require more complex and smarter mail servers, but it would make the every day user's life so much more simple.
To echo some of the other posters replying to the benefits of martial arts, I've really got to agree. I'm involved in Kuk Sool Won, and I've found just as rewarding as my experiences with football and soccer in highschool.
Besides the increased balance, strength, and flexibility, it really does increase your ability to focus and concentrate on mentally demanding task. I find it much more mentally demanding that traditional sports.
And besides, it's just damn cool to know that I can punch through 1" thick solid boards, do a jumping spin kick, and other cool things like knife throwing and staff sparring.
This really amazed me, a review of Linux that isn't fanatical about Linux, OS X, or XP. I thought the best points the review made was:
1. Linux is close, but still does some things (hardware detection primarily) a bit sloppier than Windows.
2. Even so, the reviewer seemed really optimistic at the quick progress of Linux, and was able to assure Joe Average reading the article that Linux would probably be up to par sooner than later.
3. Yes, Open Office is slow. Really slow.
4. Linux -is- easier and faster to setup than Windows! I remember when I showed my Dad how to setup Mandrake 9.2 he was blown away by the graphic installer and lack of constant reboots needed.
Moral of this story: yes, admittedly, Linux isn't quite ready for Grandma to handle all by herself yet, but it's damn close, and it's still less of a headache than Windows.
Last time the DoJ stepped in to deal with Microsoft being a monopoly and engaged in anti-competitive activities...hmm, yeah, that worked out real well. Glad to see Microsoft no longer has a stranglehold on the market and doesn't have restrictive deals with other players in the tech industry.
Quite frankly, right now this is just a war of attrition, and I think Microsoft realizes they can't win with their current market strategies. If Linux was run by a single company responsible to shareholders, then Microsoft would probably have things back to business as usual, but I still don't think Bill & Steve have figured out just how to really deal with Linux as a competitive force.
The Open Source community has shown the ability to organize and get things done (yes, I know, this isn't the case in all projects, but it has gotten substantially better). And as long as the Open Source movement stays on the current track that it's on it's only a matter of time before the average consumer begins to recognize projects as Mozilla, Open Office, and the Linux OS as something they should look into using over Windows.
The fact that I can get my Mom to recognize how cool Mozilla is compared to IE/Outlook is and that she can get everything done on an install of Mandrake 9.2 is proof that progress is being made.
I know this is just asking to get flamed, but if these kids had some proper motivation and direction, they could probably do some pretty impressive stuff.
I know script kiddies are the bottom feeders of the hacker/cracker world, but most are still very young. But they obviously have enough technical knowledge to cause alot of trouble, and channeled in the right direction they could probably grow up to be fairly proficient developers and really become an asset to the tech community.
But then maybe I'm just being naive and optimistic.
I remember all the flak the recording industry got when crippled CDs wouldn't play on computers, some car CD players, or even regular old portable CD players. And guess what, crippled CDs really haven't flourished. I don't see this going anywhere either once people like my Dad (who loves his Tivo with a passion) can't use it the way it's intended.
Though my one question is, they can send little flags all they want, it's still just a stream of 1's and 0's that can be grabbed before they enter the TV and redirected to another recording source. Just like no matter how much DRM they put on MP3s, there's still nothing preventing me from taking the line out from my computer and putting it into a digital recorder.
Now when they put gov't controlled ear plugs and blinders one me, then I'll be worried.
Now I just may be some naive college student with an econ minor under his belt, but last time I checked my professors were telling me that things increased in worth when they went through those nice little "added value" cycles. Apparently someone RIAA seems to be pumping out the FUD in mass quantities that says rather than make something people find so useful they want to literally throw their money at you, you should just cripple your product so it can only be used in limited ways and just frustrate the hell out of people....but that's just me.
1. Umm, swimming, a little bit, please? 2. More indoor environments. 3. More flying (helicopters were hands down the best improvement to the vehicles in GTA: VC). 4. The property buying in GTA:VC was a good first step, but it can be expanded so much further. 5. NPC drivers, accomplices, bodyguards for hire, etc, etc.
And while I know everybody is clamoring for better graphics, am I the only one that thinks the current engine from GTA:VC got the job done? I'll take gameplay over graphics any day.
Peter Jackson: Hopefully fantasy is an f-word that won't get bleeped by the 5 second delay.
That made me laugh, and it's sad but true, it literally took one of the greatest achievements in film making to get the movie industry to recognize the fantasy genre as a valid medium of film making, not just a bunch of movies for fanboys in costume.
You be pretty surprised how gullible and trusting most people are. You could probably make just as much money by hanging an "out of order" sign on the atm, attaching a drop box, and seeing how many people put deposits into it containing actual money.
Confidence scams work pretty well no matter low-tech or hi-tech they are, just as long as you make it look official and have plenty of people who are running on autopilot most of the time.
Regardless of your choice of architecture or OS, this news is great for consumers and technology users. I may not use a Mac, but as long as Apple is out there, out of debt, and profitable I don't have to worry about Microsoft having free reign over the direction of the computer industry. XP Pro works fine for me right now when I need to get real work done (sidenote: please, Linux, work completely on laptops soon!), but if Gates & Co. decide to slide farther down some restrictive draconian path of DRM I know that I can switch in a heartbeat.
We all saw what happened when AMD became a viable competitor for Intel, processor speeds dramatically increased and prices dropped.
Without Apple continuing to innovate and capture user mindshare we'd all probably be stuck using something along the lines of Windows ME.
Where is Disney's next big movie going to come from?
They've closed down their Florida studio.
They've lost pixar, and now they're getting in the news not for making animation but for corporate maneuvering.
Luckily for us at least we still have quality animation coming out of Japan, the rare gems coming from Warner Bros. (i.e. The Iron Giant) and the occasional Dreamworks film.
Quite personally I'd like to see Disney's slide be used as an opportuntiy for more adult themed animation to break into mainstream US culture, and with the success of spirited away, it's possible.
As someone who uses PCs and Linux, but really respects Macs and OSX, I'll trying to explain briefly why I think Jobs is doing as well as the head of Apple and Pixar.
What's the focus of Macs: Usability.
What makes Pixas films great: The story.
Notice how technology is used as a means to end in each case? While yes the technology behind Pixar films is amazing, it's the story that makes the films so entertaining. And while Macs aren't any more powerful than PCs (I know this is arguable either way) it's the ease of use that makes Macs popular. I think Jobs understands this, and there's probably a reason the man makes enough money to pay for my college tuition in the time it takes him to drink his coffee in the morning.
I try to stay out of the distro arguments, but I really have to agree with the parent poster here. I started off with Mandrake when I stepped into the shallow end of the pool with a life preserver on, but as I got more comfortable with Linux I started really exploring the vast amount of distros out there, and guess what?
...I kept coming back to slackware.
Yes, it has a text installer, but it still autodetects well, gives you plenty of control, and works well. After much exploration I still have yet to find a distro that works better on my Dual PII 266 machine with SCSI drives.
Slack 9.1 with xfce4 sitting on top of it seems to reach that nice middle ground between ease of use and proformance for slower machines.
Stories like this make me wonder, how much longer until it becomes common to buy PCs that come with a large bank of non-volatile memory instead of hard drives? The faster access time would be nice, but what I'd really be excited about is the dramatically reduced failure rate.
I recently had to send in my laptop to get the IBM 2.5" HD replaced (it was grinding slowly in oblivion), and luckily I was able to convince it keep running (a few "gentle" thumps on the table) long enough to burn some backup CDs.
I would love to have 30 GBs of flash memory to use instead of a comparatively huge unwieldly hard drive full of delicate moving parts. This would be great for laptops considering there'd be less heat produced, less energy consumed, less spaced used, and improved durability.
Maybe 5 years down the road we'll all have 1" thin laptops with low power comsumption that are both durable and powerful?
In the long run (think the next 10-25 years), Microsoft will be forced to go along with open standards or get left behind as Open Source picks up more momentum. As IBM, Novell, large countries, and other big gorillas put their weight behind Linux and Open Source, the standards they use could become "the standard". This isn't going to happen likely anytime soon, but it definately has to start with the corporate world. If XYZ Inc. decides to use Open Office and Linux to save money (and we know businesses aren't doing anything radical to save money these days), and suddenly their employees must use it, guess what software package could end up on their home computers?
As I said, it's not going to be a fast process, but it is possible.
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I completely agree with the parent post. The iPod is a fantastic consumer electronics device, but I believe that apple's operating system and hardware combination is really what makes me want to ditch my WinXP laptop. I've been saving money to buy a 12" iBook after getting tired of being jealous of all the other people in my CS lectures that had one.
....yet.)
Yes Steve Jobs, are you listening? Computer Science majors like your laptops. We got tired of Sony Vaio's, Dells, Gateways, and all the other poorly built laptops, when all we wanted was a machine that's unix friendly development environment, and still focuses on what's important in a laptop: build quality and battery life!
It's not that I'm a mac fanboy or anything, I just got tired of all the hassles that comes along with a laptop tied to WinXP (and no, Linux on laptops isn't a hassle free option
My belief for securing access points in this day and age is to just make yourself secure enough that the attacker decides that it'd just be easier to look for an unsecured AP. If you have such critical information on your network that you need super-secure wireless access, you probably shouldn't be using wireless in the first place.
Casual war-driving studies have been done in the past, and if I remember correctly, on average 60% of APs that were broadcasting were still in their default out-of-box configuration (no WAP, no MAC filtering, default password for adminstration). If you just enable WAP (please use a good random key generator, folks), and MAC filtering, more than likely it just won't be worth it for somebody to try to break in to access your network.
Also, just in case somebody does break into your AP and does something nasty, this is what the daily logs are for, so enable logging on your AP and back them up to disk regularly. Because, yes, you are responsible what goes through your connection, so you better be able to prove there was unauthorized entry, limiting your liability.
Yes, but there comes a point when you get such a large volume of calls from your less technical friends and family that it is no longer "doing someone a favor" and moves into the realm of "fulltime tech support". Then yes, you need to start charging ...in the case of friends and family, this usually isn't in the form of money. More along the lines of free food & beer or some other form of bartering.
Yes, it would be downright wrong to hand your mother a printed bill, but if you're going to be spending the better part of your weekend helping a friend set up a home network, it starts to factor into the realm of opportunity cost.
Check out Phlak.
It's fairly polished and can be used for a whole lot more than just removing spyware. I'd highly suggest checking it out.
Oh, and it uses XFce4, which I think is just a damn cool alternative to KDE and Gnome. XFce4 + Slackware 9.1 is a great combination for older computers that just get bogged down by KDE and Gnome.
It's encouraging to see unemployeed techs finally taking advantage of all that time they spent fixing friends computers for free. I know I'm usually the first one several of my friends and family call when their computer starts acting weird, and all they want to do is send email.
Now if somebody was really smart, they'd find a way to get partnered with the local Best Buy and could probably turn it into a full time job. You'd be amazed at how much people are willing to pay if you can bring some sanity to their assorted home electronics. My mom loves the 3 page FAQ I made for her that goes step by step how to do everything with the home theatre system my Dad has. She used to not watch any DVDs just because she was scared to touch anything.
A nice fool proof system, while a bit of a hassle, would effectly remove spam. PGP uses a white list of sorts, that only allows people to send you encrypted messages that have your public key. This in a sense could be done with email. Someone wants to send you an email, and has your email address. They send the small request to your mail server (1-2 KB in size) with their name, email address, and name of their mail server. The mail server holds this information and notifies you that a new sender is awaiting access. You then:
1. Verify the identity of the sender, okay then, and the sender is then given the return request, and is notified that they will be allowed to send emails.
2. Deny the sender, and all their emails will be bounced back.
Yes, spoofing problems still exist, but this system could be expanded, and guess what, you only recieve email from people you want to, and the mail server acts at the first point of defense.
This would require more complex and smarter mail servers, but it would make the every day user's life so much more simple.
To echo some of the other posters replying to the benefits of martial arts, I've really got to agree.
I'm involved in Kuk Sool Won, and I've found just as rewarding as my experiences with football and soccer in highschool.
Besides the increased balance, strength, and flexibility, it really does increase your ability to focus and concentrate on mentally demanding task. I find it much more mentally demanding that traditional sports.
And besides, it's just damn cool to know that I can punch through 1" thick solid boards, do a jumping spin kick, and other cool things like knife throwing and staff sparring.
This really amazed me, a review of Linux that isn't fanatical about Linux, OS X, or XP. I thought the best points the review made was:
1. Linux is close, but still does some things (hardware detection primarily) a bit sloppier than Windows.
2. Even so, the reviewer seemed really optimistic at the quick progress of Linux, and was able to assure Joe Average reading the article that Linux would probably be up to par sooner than later.
3. Yes, Open Office is slow. Really slow.
4. Linux -is- easier and faster to setup than Windows! I remember when I showed my Dad how to setup Mandrake 9.2 he was blown away by the graphic installer and lack of constant reboots needed.
Moral of this story: yes, admittedly, Linux isn't quite ready for Grandma to handle all by herself yet, but it's damn close, and it's still less of a headache than Windows.
Last time the DoJ stepped in to deal with Microsoft being a monopoly and engaged in anti-competitive activities ...hmm, yeah, that worked out real well. Glad to see Microsoft no longer has a stranglehold on the market and doesn't have restrictive deals with other players in the tech industry.
Quite frankly, right now this is just a war of attrition, and I think Microsoft realizes they can't win with their current market strategies. If Linux was run by a single company responsible to shareholders, then Microsoft would probably have things back to business as usual, but I still don't think Bill & Steve have figured out just how to really deal with Linux as a competitive force.
The Open Source community has shown the ability to organize and get things done (yes, I know, this isn't the case in all projects, but it has gotten substantially better). And as long as the Open Source movement stays on the current track that it's on it's only a matter of time before the average consumer begins to recognize projects as Mozilla, Open Office, and the Linux OS as something they should look into using over Windows.
The fact that I can get my Mom to recognize how cool Mozilla is compared to IE/Outlook is and that she can get everything done on an install of Mandrake 9.2 is proof that progress is being made.
I know this is just asking to get flamed, but if these kids had some proper motivation and direction, they could probably do some pretty impressive stuff.
I know script kiddies are the bottom feeders of the hacker/cracker world, but most are still very young. But they obviously have enough technical knowledge to cause alot of trouble, and channeled in the right direction they could probably grow up to be fairly proficient developers and really become an asset to the tech community.
But then maybe I'm just being naive and optimistic.
I remember all the flak the recording industry got when crippled CDs wouldn't play on computers, some car CD players, or even regular old portable CD players. And guess what, crippled CDs really haven't flourished. I don't see this going anywhere either once people like my Dad (who loves his Tivo with a passion) can't use it the way it's intended.
Though my one question is, they can send little flags all they want, it's still just a stream of 1's and 0's that can be grabbed before they enter the TV and redirected to another recording source.
Just like no matter how much DRM they put on MP3s, there's still nothing preventing me from taking the line out from my computer and putting it into a digital recorder.
Now when they put gov't controlled ear plugs and blinders one me, then I'll be worried.
Now I just may be some naive college student with an econ minor under his belt, but last time I checked my professors were telling me that things increased in worth when they went through those nice little "added value" cycles. Apparently someone RIAA seems to be pumping out the FUD in mass quantities that says rather than make something people find so useful they want to literally throw their money at you, you should just cripple your product so it can only be used in limited ways and just frustrate the hell out of people. ...but that's just me.
1. Umm, swimming, a little bit, please?
2. More indoor environments.
3. More flying (helicopters were hands down the best improvement to the vehicles in GTA: VC).
4. The property buying in GTA:VC was a good first step, but it can be expanded so much further.
5. NPC drivers, accomplices, bodyguards for hire, etc, etc.
And while I know everybody is clamoring for better graphics, am I the only one that thinks the current engine from GTA:VC got the job done? I'll take gameplay over graphics any day.
Peter Jackson: Hopefully fantasy is an f-word that won't get bleeped by the 5 second delay.
That made me laugh, and it's sad but true, it literally took one of the greatest achievements in film making to get the movie industry to recognize the fantasy genre as a valid medium of film making, not just a bunch of movies for fanboys in costume.
You be pretty surprised how gullible and trusting most people are. You could probably make just as much money by hanging an "out of order" sign on the atm, attaching a drop box, and seeing how many people put deposits into it containing actual money. Confidence scams work pretty well no matter low-tech or hi-tech they are, just as long as you make it look official and have plenty of people who are running on autopilot most of the time.
Regardless of your choice of architecture or OS, this news is great for consumers and technology users. I may not use a Mac, but as long as Apple is out there, out of debt, and profitable I don't have to worry about Microsoft having free reign over the direction of the computer industry. XP Pro works fine for me right now when I need to get real work done (sidenote: please, Linux, work completely on laptops soon!), but if Gates & Co. decide to slide farther down some restrictive draconian path of DRM I know that I can switch in a heartbeat.
We all saw what happened when AMD became a viable competitor for Intel, processor speeds dramatically increased and prices dropped.
Without Apple continuing to innovate and capture user mindshare we'd all probably be stuck using something along the lines of Windows ME.
Where is Disney's next big movie going to come from? They've closed down their Florida studio.
They've lost pixar, and now they're getting in the news not for making animation but for corporate maneuvering.
Luckily for us at least we still have quality animation coming out of Japan, the rare gems coming from Warner Bros. (i.e. The Iron Giant) and the occasional Dreamworks film.
Quite personally I'd like to see Disney's slide be used as an opportuntiy for more adult themed animation to break into mainstream US culture, and with the success of spirited away, it's possible.
As someone who uses PCs and Linux, but really respects Macs and OSX, I'll trying to explain briefly why I think Jobs is doing as well as the head of Apple and Pixar.
What's the focus of Macs: Usability.
What makes Pixas films great: The story.
Notice how technology is used as a means to end in each case? While yes the technology behind Pixar films is amazing, it's the story that makes the films so entertaining. And while Macs aren't any more powerful than PCs (I know this is arguable either way) it's the ease of use that makes Macs popular. I think Jobs understands this, and there's probably a reason the man makes enough money to pay for my college tuition in the time it takes him to drink his coffee in the morning.
I try to stay out of the distro arguments, but I really have to agree with the parent poster here. I started off with Mandrake when I stepped into the shallow end of the pool with a life preserver on, but as I got more comfortable with Linux I started really exploring the vast amount of distros out there, and guess what?
...I kept coming back to slackware.
Yes, it has a text installer, but it still autodetects well, gives you plenty of control, and works well. After much exploration I still have yet to find a distro that works better on my Dual PII 266 machine with SCSI drives.
Slack 9.1 with xfce4 sitting on top of it seems to reach that nice middle ground between ease of use and proformance for slower machines.
Stories like this make me wonder, how much longer until it becomes common to buy PCs that come with a large bank of non-volatile memory instead of hard drives? The faster access time would be nice, but what I'd really be excited about is the dramatically reduced failure rate.
I recently had to send in my laptop to get the IBM 2.5" HD replaced (it was grinding slowly in oblivion), and luckily I was able to convince it keep running (a few "gentle" thumps on the table) long enough to burn some backup CDs.
I would love to have 30 GBs of flash memory to use instead of a comparatively huge unwieldly hard drive full of delicate moving parts. This would be great for laptops considering there'd be less heat produced, less energy consumed, less spaced used, and improved durability.
Maybe 5 years down the road we'll all have 1" thin laptops with low power comsumption that are both durable and powerful?
In the long run (think the next 10-25 years), Microsoft will be forced to go along with open standards or get left behind as Open Source picks up more momentum. As IBM, Novell, large countries, and other big gorillas put their weight behind Linux and Open Source, the standards they use could become "the standard". This isn't going to happen likely anytime soon, but it definately has to start with the corporate world. If XYZ Inc. decides to use Open Office and Linux to save money (and we know businesses aren't doing anything radical to save money these days), and suddenly their employees must use it, guess what software package could end up on their home computers? As I said, it's not going to be a fast process, but it is possible.