MS could easily introduce unix like root-user seperation...But they can't, that is not the product they are selling. MS wants to sell an OS that will just run. If a website needs the latest flash then that should just be installed without the user noticing.
It is an often repeated fallacy that you cannot have ease-of-use unless you run as root. That's absurd. In Linux, I don't care if I'm root user or not 99.99% of the time. If I click on a control panel icon, and it needs root access, it prompts me for the password. If I need to install Flash, it should just prompt me for the root password (Mozilla doesn't do this though, I must admit). Prompting for a password is something a user has to do daily for their email, web, etc. This isn't an issue of ease-of-use.
I run Windows as non-admin. It is much harder to use for two reasons:
1) Microsoft doesn't put the 15 minutes of time into coding an icon that prompts me for an admin password. It is absurd.
2) Many applications don't spent the 15 minutes of coding time required to write save files into "Documents and Settings\username"
What is the difference between a Suse RPM and a Red Hat RPM and a Fedora Core RPM?
Can someone explain to me why packages are distro-specific? I've installed RPMs from Mandrake, Suse, Red Hat, Fedora Core, etc. on my various Unix boxes - and half the time the distro doesn't match-up. The only problem I've ever seen is that sometimes the icons aren't added to the menus, or something like that. That's not a big deal to me -- I see how it could be for an end user though. But is that all?
Someone please mod the parent down. Using bold, stating "everybody knows" so it must be true, and using WTF, SUCK, hate, and worst != informative. This guy is trolling.
By the way, to the parent poster -- A quick google search will reveal numerous reviews showing that the Pentium-M has the lower power/performance ratio on the market. That's why Intel is dominating in the laptop market.
Who says that less populated areas must have all the comforts of the modern world? There are people who live in some of those areas who despise those modern comforts.
This is one of those "manifest destiny" type things that drives me crazy. People just assume that it is the right of humanity to cover the entire globe with our coveniences: electricity, running water, and telephony. But is that really a good idea? I always think of that planet in Star Wars (Coruscant?) that is completely covered in city. Is that humanty's dream?
I hope this doesn't harm the Mono project, which Novell has been a vital part of. I have great hope for this project. But I'm not sure how it helps Novell's bottom line, so it might be the kind of thing that goes on the chopping block.
...they should use a professional forensics firm to erase it.
"Alternatively," he said "they could smash it to bits."
Unfortunately, the author doesn't understand that the data is already in bits, so this won't help. I would recommend a multiple-pass approach: First split it into big sectors, then into large mega bytes, then again into smaller bytes, then finally tiny nibbles.
This article is FUD, and bad FUD to counter Goslings stand against the 'untrusted code' model of the.Net.
No, your reply is FUD, just like Goslings stuff about untrusted code. I won't waste my time explaining why it was FUD, that was already well-covered in the Slashdot comments around that article.
...JNI still works within the security model, yet it allows native code to be interfaced with, that is a seperate issue, and akin to making a network call, and running code on another server.
You just made that up hoping most readers have never used JNI. That isn't how JNI works. It works very similarly to how.NET works. And you can, if you write code to do so, completely screw with the native security model using JNI.
Well, yes, windows runs on 90% of desktops, I would say.net runs on 15% of that figure.
I would love to know where you got that figure. It might be right. But without some facts behind it that is a meaningless attempt to belittle.NET.
So they have a bent from the start to discredit Java.
You just misunderstand: that is a reasonable way to start an academic paper: Begin with a hypothesis, and test it. If they were trying to write something subtly biased, they wouldn't start by telling you. They would hide it with words like FUD which is in nearly every paragraph you wrote. It's actually good to do it that way because you can't do research until you have a hypothesis, otherwise you don't know what you are measuring. You have to establish that basis before doing the research, not after.
One last personal request: Using bold all over the place at random looks kinda like USING LOTS OF CAPS and doesn't help make a point. I recommend using bold on no more than one or two words in a paragraph.
My TV is already a sloppy mess full of connections. I've spent hours in the store explaining to customers (and salesdrones) what these mean and what they need. Half of those connectors should never even have been invented in the first place because a better standard already existed (Ex: VGA). I hope consumers send a huge backlash over this, because displays are expensive, and converter boxes are hard to find and even more expensive.
In all honesty- every time I use someone else's box, I search for images. Doesn't everyone? I won't lie, I am hoping that they have some homemade porn on there of their wifey.
I hope you were kidding. I do computer repair, and I take certain steps to make sure I never accidentally open the "My Documents" or "My Pictures" folders unless I need to. If I hired you to fix a customer's computer and I discovered you did that, I would fire you.
The really really scary part of this is where you say "Doesn't everyone?" as though you think this was the norm! Are you not even aware that what you are doing is unethical? It also happens to be bad for business, so you should be careful that no one finds out.
I just now noticed the irony that you started that statement with "In all honesty-".
Cookies aren't evil. They are just misused, and misunderstood.
There's nothing wrong with using cookies to prevent me from having to logon to Slashdot 10 times a day. And there is nothing wrong with cookies telling Amazon.com that people who buy Movie X also like to buy Book Y. That is useful anonymous marketing information. I actually LIKE it when Amazon recommends things to me, because they are usually right!
The problem is when the cookie stays around for days and you never get a login prompt: that's a security problem. Or when marketers build long-term profiles on you, then try to grab identifying information from other sites you use.
I have Mozilla set to delete cookies every day, which seems to be the best balance. (Firefox unfortunately does not have this option).
Management doesn't need to know details about standards and compatibility and such. Just make it work on both browsers. I highly doubt that the business requirements for your project say "Req 43z: Make sure the product does not work on Mozilla, Opera, or Lynx.":-)
If your development team wants it to be cross-browser compatible, then just make it so. If your development team doesn't know about standards or doesn't care, then I might start looking for another job because the product is doomed anyway.
My experience is that development teams tend to use a mix of browsers, so unless they are total newbs they make it work with what they've got, in addition to what management wants. There's nothing insubordinate about that. It's good design and it is planning ahead. So don't fret, just make it work.
Here's my qualifications for choosing Java, then Assembly:
Java: - Is not too verbose (Hello World is not daunting) - Any algorithm can be reasonably implemented - Any structure can be reasonably represented - No low-level complications like pointers - Supports modern programming techniques like functional and O-O - The student can do real-world things in it - The student can experiment at home for free
Don't forget assembly!! - Too many new programmers need to do something low-level, or interoperate with another language, and they have no concept how memory is arranged, what source code compiles down into, or even what a compiler does! They don't comprehend that a string isn't an intrinsic thing the CPU recognizes, and that there are hundreds of ways to store and manipulate them. So when they have to learn about memory-thrashing, multithreading, garbage-collection, optimization, etc. they are lost.
This must be taught this very early on, not as an advanced course, so that when they learn other lagnauges and algorithms they can see where it comes from.
Granted, it would be a nice feature, but why would you run tar as root to install something into a globally readable folder without full knowing what it is extracting? And why is it tar's job to tell you that this is a bad idea?
which may allow local users or remote attackers to gain privileges."
A better way to say that is that you are giving local users or remote attackers priveledges. This is very different from a buffer overflow.
Maybe I just take things too seriously, but can we rebel against this? Seriously: I think I will observe the standard international time, and just see what happens. Yes, I'll need to take it into account while shopping. Oh, and I'll use more energy than everyone else.:-) Seriously, did the American people want this?
Voice - Data - Voice - Data - Voice - Data... arggghhh! When will the regulators realize that it is irrelevant?
The question is: Are companies that lay telephone lines considered natural monopolies? If they are, then they should be regulated and should be required to lease their lines to third parties. If they are not natural monopolies then they should not be regulated and they should not be required to lesae their lines.
Why is that so difficult? My theory is that people don't seem to understand that, in the case of a natural monopoly, regulation INCREASES competition, not decreases it. Capitalists always want to remove regulation to increase competition. But they have it backwards in this case.
It seems to me that any company that can lay lines of any kind (power, POTS, fiber) is a natural monopoly. It is prohibitively expensive to do, and it is a heavily regulated process (for good reason too: they limits how many liens can be strung, and how much of my yard you can dig up, etc.) Speakeasy, Earthlink, Cavtel, etc. could not exist if they had to lay lines: the space to lay them is finite, and the cost is extreme.
Lastly, I have to add that whatever decision is made must apply to power companies, cable companies, and phone companies alike. The issue is not what the lines carry, it is the lines themselves.
I'm not sure if this is the case for your software, but too many programs are not designed to be cross-platform from the start.
Often, they are written for a particular platform and then someone expects them to be ported after the fact. The result is usually a clumsy and inefficient program that looks like it was meant for another operating system.
Programs need to be designed to be cross-platform, not ported to be cross-platform. If you want an app to be portable, use GTK/C++ or Java/Swing or TCL/Tk. Too many people use Visual Basic or MFC or Cocoa and then have trouble porting.
I've heard of companies that had issues with flash drives, but I've never understood why. Could you explain it to me?
I assume it is a concern about people copying files to the flash drives and walking out with them. But small high-capacity removable media is not anything new. When 3.5" floppy drives were common, it was trivial to take large amounts of source code, documentation, etc. Then came CDs, with more of the same. Today, DVD disks are either 3.25" or 5.25" in diameter, completely flat, and hold far more than flash drives. Yet I've never heard of anyone concerned about the security implications of DVDs. Most of my coworkers have PDAs or laptops. And every computer in the office has internet access.
So why are flash drives so magical that they deserve special treatment?
Actually, a contract can deny a person their "civil liberties." That's the entire point of a contract: Both parties are making a trade. If no one is giving anything up, then the contract doesn't mean anything.
A non-disclosure agreement is a common example. The contract takes away one party's freedom of speech in exchange for a job or money or some information.
Another is a contract for work. One side must do a specific task such as wire a house to certain specifications, in exchange for money. One person gave up their right to go outside, have a cup of coffee, then go to the beach for the weekend. If they choose to do so, they are in violation of the contract and can be sued.
The only difference between a contract and a law is that the contract is voluntary, and the only consequence is money, not jail.
Okay, so we've heard from Hillary Clinton, and the head of the ESRB, and various representatives, but nothing from the people this impacts. I have yet to see an article titled "Parent complains that she didn't know game about hit men killing prostitutes also included sex."
As far as I know, this law would imapct parents. But the parents aren't complaining. So why is anyone wasting their time passing laws about it? If the constituents aren't interested, why bother? What's the drive?
Then your card didn't have a custom fan. I have a BFG Radeon 6800 OC where they installed custom dual-fans with LED lights. It's kinda ridiculous what they did to get an extra 5% clock speed. I don't think I would dare to try and replace those fans. It is a real pain because it needs an extra power connector to operate, was hot and loud from day 1, and it has gotten louder as the thing ages.
I think there solutions to this need, but let me take an aside and comment say that some problems have no solutions.
Solvable: Problem: I need to add a number to 7 to get 6. What number should I use? Answer: Use the number -1. 7 + -1 = 6.
Unsolvable: Problem: I need to add a positive number to 7 to get 6. What number should I use? Answer: Find another client.:-)
Many times I see a customer choose something cheap to save money, only to find it costs them more to learn, maintain, and use that solution that it would have been to do it right. Maybe this is such a case.
Slashdot Mirror
I run Windows as non-admin. It is much harder to use for two reasons:
1) Microsoft doesn't put the 15 minutes of time into coding an icon that prompts me for an admin password. It is absurd.
2) Many applications don't spent the 15 minutes of coding time required to write save files into "Documents and Settings\username"
What is the difference between a Suse RPM and a Red Hat RPM and a Fedora Core RPM?
Can someone explain to me why packages are distro-specific? I've installed RPMs from Mandrake, Suse, Red Hat, Fedora Core, etc. on my various Unix boxes - and half the time the distro doesn't match-up. The only problem I've ever seen is that sometimes the icons aren't added to the menus, or something like that. That's not a big deal to me -- I see how it could be for an end user though. But is that all?
Someone please mod the parent down. Using bold, stating "everybody knows" so it must be true, and using WTF, SUCK, hate, and worst != informative. This guy is trolling.
By the way, to the parent poster -- A quick google search will reveal numerous reviews showing that the Pentium-M has the lower power/performance ratio on the market. That's why Intel is dominating in the laptop market.
Who says that less populated areas must have all the comforts of the modern world? There are people who live in some of those areas who despise those modern comforts.
This is one of those "manifest destiny" type things that drives me crazy. People just assume that it is the right of humanity to cover the entire globe with our coveniences: electricity, running water, and telephony. But is that really a good idea? I always think of that planet in Star Wars (Coruscant?) that is completely covered in city. Is that humanty's dream?
I hope this doesn't harm the Mono project, which Novell has been a vital part of. I have great hope for this project. But I'm not sure how it helps Novell's bottom line, so it might be the kind of thing that goes on the chopping block.
It's actually good to do it that way because you can't do research until you have a hypothesis, otherwise you don't know what you are measuring. You have to establish that basis before doing the research, not after.
One last personal request: Using bold all over the place at random looks kinda like USING LOTS OF CAPS and doesn't help make a point. I recommend using bold on no more than one or two words in a paragraph.
This is getting ridiculous!
My TV is already a sloppy mess full of connections. I've spent hours in the store explaining to customers (and salesdrones) what these mean and what they need. Half of those connectors should never even have been invented in the first place because a better standard already existed (Ex: VGA). I hope consumers send a huge backlash over this, because displays are expensive, and converter boxes are hard to find and even more expensive.
The really really scary part of this is where you say "Doesn't everyone?" as though you think this was the norm! Are you not even aware that what you are doing is unethical? It also happens to be bad for business, so you should be careful that no one finds out. I just now noticed the irony that you started that statement with "In all honesty-".
Cookies aren't evil. They are just misused, and misunderstood.
There's nothing wrong with using cookies to prevent me from having to logon to Slashdot 10 times a day. And there is nothing wrong with cookies telling Amazon.com that people who buy Movie X also like to buy Book Y. That is useful anonymous marketing information. I actually LIKE it when Amazon recommends things to me, because they are usually right!
The problem is when the cookie stays around for days and you never get a login prompt: that's a security problem. Or when marketers build long-term profiles on you, then try to grab identifying information from other sites you use.
I have Mozilla set to delete cookies every day, which seems to be the best balance. (Firefox unfortunately does not have this option).
Management doesn't need to know details about standards and compatibility and such. Just make it work on both browsers. I highly doubt that the business requirements for your project say "Req 43z: Make sure the product does not work on Mozilla, Opera, or Lynx." :-)
If your development team wants it to be cross-browser compatible, then just make it so. If your development team doesn't know about standards or doesn't care, then I might start looking for another job because the product is doomed anyway.
My experience is that development teams tend to use a mix of browsers, so unless they are total newbs they make it work with what they've got, in addition to what management wants. There's nothing insubordinate about that. It's good design and it is planning ahead. So don't fret, just make it work.
Here's my qualifications for choosing Java, then Assembly:
Java:
- Is not too verbose (Hello World is not daunting)
- Any algorithm can be reasonably implemented
- Any structure can be reasonably represented
- No low-level complications like pointers
- Supports modern programming techniques like functional and O-O
- The student can do real-world things in it
- The student can experiment at home for free
Don't forget assembly!!
- Too many new programmers need to do something low-level, or interoperate with another language, and they have no concept how memory is arranged, what source code compiles down into, or even what a compiler does! They don't comprehend that a string isn't an intrinsic thing the CPU recognizes, and that there are hundreds of ways to store and manipulate them. So when they have to learn about memory-thrashing, multithreading, garbage-collection, optimization, etc. they are lost.
This must be taught this very early on, not as an advanced course, so that when they learn other lagnauges and algorithms they can see where it comes from.
Maybe I just take things too seriously, but can we rebel against this? Seriously: I think I will observe the standard international time, and just see what happens. Yes, I'll need to take it into account while shopping. Oh, and I'll use more energy than everyone else. :-) Seriously, did the American people want this?
Voice - Data - Voice - Data - Voice - Data... arggghhh! When will the regulators realize that it is irrelevant?
The question is: Are companies that lay telephone lines considered natural monopolies? If they are, then they should be regulated and should be required to lease their lines to third parties. If they are not natural monopolies then they should not be regulated and they should not be required to lesae their lines.
Why is that so difficult? My theory is that people don't seem to understand that, in the case of a natural monopoly, regulation INCREASES competition, not decreases it. Capitalists always want to remove regulation to increase competition. But they have it backwards in this case.
It seems to me that any company that can lay lines of any kind (power, POTS, fiber) is a natural monopoly. It is prohibitively expensive to do, and it is a heavily regulated process (for good reason too: they limits how many liens can be strung, and how much of my yard you can dig up, etc.) Speakeasy, Earthlink, Cavtel, etc. could not exist if they had to lay lines: the space to lay them is finite, and the cost is extreme.
Lastly, I have to add that whatever decision is made must apply to power companies, cable companies, and phone companies alike. The issue is not what the lines carry, it is the lines themselves.
I'm not sure if this is the case for your software, but too many programs are not designed to be cross-platform from the start.
Often, they are written for a particular platform and then someone expects them to be ported after the fact. The result is usually a clumsy and inefficient program that looks like it was meant for another operating system.
Programs need to be designed to be cross-platform, not ported to be cross-platform. If you want an app to be portable, use GTK/C++ or Java/Swing or TCL/Tk. Too many people use Visual Basic or MFC or Cocoa and then have trouble porting.
I've heard of companies that had issues with flash drives, but I've never understood why. Could you explain it to me?
I assume it is a concern about people copying files to the flash drives and walking out with them. But small high-capacity removable media is not anything new. When 3.5" floppy drives were common, it was trivial to take large amounts of source code, documentation, etc. Then came CDs, with more of the same. Today, DVD disks are either 3.25" or 5.25" in diameter, completely flat, and hold far more than flash drives. Yet I've never heard of anyone concerned about the security implications of DVDs. Most of my coworkers have PDAs or laptops. And every computer in the office has internet access.
So why are flash drives so magical that they deserve special treatment?
Actually, a contract can deny a person their "civil liberties." That's the entire point of a contract: Both parties are making a trade. If no one is giving anything up, then the contract doesn't mean anything.
A non-disclosure agreement is a common example. The contract takes away one party's freedom of speech in exchange for a job or money or some information.
Another is a contract for work. One side must do a specific task such as wire a house to certain specifications, in exchange for money. One person gave up their right to go outside, have a cup of coffee, then go to the beach for the weekend. If they choose to do so, they are in violation of the contract and can be sued.
The only difference between a contract and a law is that the contract is voluntary, and the only consequence is money, not jail.
Okay, so we've heard from Hillary Clinton, and the head of the ESRB, and various representatives, but nothing from the people this impacts. I have yet to see an article titled "Parent complains that she didn't know game about hit men killing prostitutes also included sex."
As far as I know, this law would imapct parents. But the parents aren't complaining. So why is anyone wasting their time passing laws about it? If the constituents aren't interested, why bother? What's the drive?
Then your card didn't have a custom fan. I have a BFG Radeon 6800 OC where they installed custom dual-fans with LED lights. It's kinda ridiculous what they did to get an extra 5% clock speed. I don't think I would dare to try and replace those fans. It is a real pain because it needs an extra power connector to operate, was hot and loud from day 1, and it has gotten louder as the thing ages.
I, for one, welcome our mechanical octogenarian overlords...
Did anyone else misread that as U.S. High Level Anti- Priv acy Post Created?
I think there solutions to this need, but let me take an aside and comment say that some problems have no solutions.
:-)
Solvable:
Problem: I need to add a number to 7 to get 6. What number should I use?
Answer: Use the number -1. 7 + -1 = 6.
Unsolvable:
Problem: I need to add a positive number to 7 to get 6. What number should I use?
Answer: Find another client.
Many times I see a customer choose something cheap to save money, only to find it costs them more to learn, maintain, and use that solution that it would have been to do it right. Maybe this is such a case.