I had two of my friends computers crash on them...blue screen while booting, and no safe mode. I saved their documents and mp3s of course, and then asked them what they wanted me to do, reinstall windows or ? Both opted to give Linux a try as they have seen me use it and thought it was as easy to use as windows. They were a little wrong in that I made it look easy. It was confusing to them to install software through a package manager, although after seeing it work they liked the idea. Now when I get back to college I will put windows back on it for them if they couldn't use Linux over the summer without me. However, I hope that both of them will keep Linux as for me its easy to administrate via SSH or VNC compared to having to only having VNC on windows.
I think people who use Linux and advocate its use everywhere do a disfavor as it scares people when someone is tooooo passionate about anything. I try to show people Linux and hope they will give it a test run, if not, their loss when they have spyware and adware to fight with (although I do install firefox for them to curb that).
I also think that modern Linux distros will find and configure more drivers than Windows XP will. HOWEVER this is not really a fair comparison. Windows XP is what, from 2001? Lets pit Debian 3.0 with its native kernel against Windows XP and see which one gets more drivers out of the box correct.
Don't get me wrong, I use Linux on all my systems and don't have any devices which don't work out of the box. I dislike microsoft as much as the next Linux using slashdotter, but I don't think its fair to compare a modern Linux to a 4 year old Windows...now it is their own fault for not releasing a "better" version of windows in those 4 years...just my 2 cents
ummmm last time I checked...which was about a minute ago, I opened a new tab via middle clicking on a link...I think that has been standard behavior on Windows and Linux since pre Firefox days...Even phoenix had that ability.
I haven't boughten an INtel chip for myself for quite a while. Originally I wanted to support the underdog, but now (without my youthful activism) I just think they create more innovative and better products. I just ordered the pieces to build a server for my company and got AMD64 chip, not an Intel.
yea I have thought about this too. Or what about all the people on Linux who download it from their distributor. I'm on debian and ubuntu and just apt-get install mozilla-firefox.
There are a more than a few million Linux users out there so I'm sure that is not in the stats.
I agree entirely with the parent. A contract is only valid if it is legal. Take this example. A drug dealer signs a "contract" with his suppliers to deliever said goods at a certain time every month. The drug dealer can't go to court and ask for them to make sure the supplier actually delivers the goods mentioned in the contract as the contract itself refers to illegal activity. A judge cannot decide that the terms of a contract have to be enforced if the contract itself is illegal or illegal activity.
and while we are at it, lets also get rid of glasses...just hurting our species as those people aren't strong enough to survive...
...and why give people anti-bacteria...
joking of course. I agree that to a certain extent we should let our species evolve naturally, but sometimes for the social good, medication is a benefit. If america truely does have 5 million depressed people (I tend to disagree and think its lower) then something like this could be very beneficial as we can actually have them be productive members of societey. Many "clinically depressed" people I know can't seem to keep a job/stay in college
Does anyone remember that java went from 1.4.2 to java 5? Or that sun 5.8 solaris really was something like solaris 8? I may be wrong here but I'm fairly sure that companies do this all the time. Versions sadly don't have any relavance to the product and its abilities. Anyone really notice a "big" difference between Office 2000, Office XP, and Office 2003. To me, it seems like they changed the icons and called it a new product (OK 2003 can recover from crashes...granted and Outlook2003 can remotely access Exchange via proxy settings) but other than that its just marketing saying...now would be a good time to a new version. Most companies jumped from 2000 to 2003 but I know almost no one who went to XP...don't know how I ended up here starting off with sun, but you get the idea, companies and developers will often pick version numbers unrelated to how the product evolved since the last release.
I think the best way to combat spam is with effective server side anti-spam solution, but still delivering it just tagged as *SPAM* what they then do wiht it is up to them. If someone wants to get penis creme to get the biggest "cum shots to impress their wife"(pardon my language...just reading from my last spam message). Its not up to me as an admin of a small hosting company to do anything. I wont attack those sending me spams, and its not my job to block people from getting what they want. I don't think spam is such a pain as a well trained (more than 10000 spams and hams) spamassassin or other bayesian filter should get reasonably good.
Also I set up a catch all for my clients. They sign up at websites as @domain.com. Then if that domain starts sending spams we add as an alias to the spam@domain.com. This has helped a great deal as people's primary e-mail accounts remain hidden behind the catch all. And it require almost no work for the clients. They can send me a quick note or add it through their "control panel" blacklist...
What do other slashdotters do that are admin's for hosting companies or midsize-big companies? I would be interested
Agreed, Thats usually what is done I believe, as contact_form@website or contact@website, etc...However I don't think SMTP server's should block addresses where the sending server and domain are mismatched. I send a lot of e-mails from one domain, through an e-mail server that is not related to it, thus it a SMTP server could block it as seeing it as "fake" but when in reality my university doesn't let me send e-mail's through their domain unless I'm in their IP range or through webmail. So I send e-mails from my university account through another unreleated server...
This whole discussion came out of someone asking why not block e-mails where the time was in the past/future and then why not block fake addresses. I hope that I've made it clear why I _believe_ that smtp server's shouldn't drop "fake" addresses where the smtp server's and sender domains aren't matched. If not...its your opinion : ). I just hope you wont block my e-mails:p
Understood, but spam filters will often complain if the From field doesn't have a name, so its benificial to set the from: field. While one is at it, probably set the reply to field. However, I usually just set the from field, as the reply-to will then automatically be the from field...just my preference
heh, oviously one shouldn't spend all day doing nothing. work should occupy almost the entire amount while your at work, but sometimes you hit a bug you can't fix and need time to think or relax...and if someone notices...use 3ddesktop pager program to switch between virtual desktops...usually it gets a "wow, cool" reaction from the non techies when they see things rotate and zoom in and out : )
Well sometimes you send e-mails from fake addresses. Its a necessity...think about all the times you get e-mails from a website. Those usually are all faked from's as often they want you to reply to someone other than the web server's user account. I do it all the time. In fact, I have a few forms on my website, all which when e-mail people are from "different" addresses. So when they reply to the generated addresses they reach real people, not the apache user account.
I've thought about rejecting e-mails from the future or way in the past as well as from non resistant domains, but in the end its better just to deliver it all instead of getting complaints from customers saying they didn't get an e-mail. So just deliver everything and hopefully the anti-spam solution will flag it...but atleast the customer will get it.
While setting back you clock may fool some people, it wont fool anyone who knows about the "header" of an e-mail. A quick peek there and you find all the timestamps of each email server that passed the email along. If there is a "huge" gap inbetween when it was send form "localhost" and the first mailserver...something is up.
Also this doesn't work if one uses webmail where one would have to reset the server's time.
NOT that I don't resolve to such trickery once in a while. Most of our boses won't read the header of a message, and only the true geek has his e-mail viewer set to e-mail source instead of the nice outlook (evolution for me) display. If your cubicle is in a public place, virtual desktops comes in handy. gaim open on desktop 1, quickly move to desktop2 with source code open when you hear footsteps... or for the windows fans, alt tab to a full screen program where you have "actual work" open...
I would be interested in what other slashdotters do, I'm sure we have some pretty original ideas.
Petition Google to atleast state that it will work with Linux. It is these things "Require windows XP or Mac OSX" that make people think nothing works with Linux. I see these things all the time on boxes for digital cameras. Let google know that they should provide a download for Linux users.
There happens to be some software under progress called beagle. Beagle Link
I believe that it can search through open office files, email, gaim chat logs, pictures, and all sorts of things. Similar idea to this mac osX thingie. It has a daemon which monitors for changes (i think). I'm on ubuntu hoary, and its not available there yet, but maybe you can get it in debian unstable. If so, maybe you should review it?
I hope its up to par with spotlight and google desktop search and the likes
i agree with this. The types of people who buy macs will continue to buy macs, no matter what processor. And those using Linux are using it on x86/PPC because they like the idea of open source and having the ability to hack through source code. Those people wont be switching to Mac OS X on x86 just because they can.
THe biggest threat that this Mac OS X on x86 is to windows. Especially with college bound students. Many already have ipods and love them. Knowing that they can try out Mac OSX and if they dont like it, bail for windows. And usually the things we learn in college stick with us...right?
for once I think this is a good move for microsoft. Programs should not run by default from IE directly from websites. Users should be restricted by default. If they know what they are doing then they can change that in the options. It is not fair to have a grandpa open a page and get bombarded with spyware. Thus if by default he is prevented to execute programs then he will have less problems. Until now I have just installed Firefox and told them to use that. I will probably also do so in the future, even if IE 7 fixes security issues.
However, this might be sad for us geeks as we may have to work harder for our easily earned 20 an hour fixing computers from their spyware woes. It was an easy and fun run while it lasted, but it's probably for the better. Now that people down the street can use their computers, they may have more interesting jobs for us to do.
Slashdot Mirror
I think people who use Linux and advocate its use everywhere do a disfavor as it scares people when someone is tooooo passionate about anything. I try to show people Linux and hope they will give it a test run, if not, their loss when they have spyware and adware to fight with (although I do install firefox for them to curb that).
mine does ; )
does anyone see their footer? "©2005 Microsoft  - privacy - why preview?"...did they have monkeys coding this : )? i mean  ...they forgot their semi colon...did they do this in frontpage?
Don't get me wrong, I use Linux on all my systems and don't have any devices which don't work out of the box. I dislike microsoft as much as the next Linux using slashdotter, but I don't think its fair to compare a modern Linux to a 4 year old Windows...now it is their own fault for not releasing a "better" version of windows in those 4 years...just my 2 cents
ummmm last time I checked...which was about a minute ago, I opened a new tab via middle clicking on a link...I think that has been standard behavior on Windows and Linux since pre Firefox days...Even phoenix had that ability.
I haven't boughten an INtel chip for myself for quite a while. Originally I wanted to support the underdog, but now (without my youthful activism) I just think they create more innovative and better products. I just ordered the pieces to build a server for my company and got AMD64 chip, not an Intel.
yea I have thought about this too. Or what about all the people on Linux who download it from their distributor. I'm on debian and ubuntu and just apt-get install mozilla-firefox. There are a more than a few million Linux users out there so I'm sure that is not in the stats.
I agree entirely with the parent. A contract is only valid if it is legal. Take this example. A drug dealer signs a "contract" with his suppliers to deliever said goods at a certain time every month. The drug dealer can't go to court and ask for them to make sure the supplier actually delivers the goods mentioned in the contract as the contract itself refers to illegal activity. A judge cannot decide that the terms of a contract have to be enforced if the contract itself is illegal or illegal activity.
...and why give people anti-bacteria...
joking of course. I agree that to a certain extent we should let our species evolve naturally, but sometimes for the social good, medication is a benefit. If america truely does have 5 million depressed people (I tend to disagree and think its lower) then something like this could be very beneficial as we can actually have them be productive members of societey. Many "clinically depressed" people I know can't seem to keep a job/stay in college
Does anyone remember that java went from 1.4.2 to java 5? Or that sun 5.8 solaris really was something like solaris 8? I may be wrong here but I'm fairly sure that companies do this all the time. Versions sadly don't have any relavance to the product and its abilities. Anyone really notice a "big" difference between Office 2000, Office XP, and Office 2003. To me, it seems like they changed the icons and called it a new product (OK 2003 can recover from crashes...granted and Outlook2003 can remotely access Exchange via proxy settings) but other than that its just marketing saying...now would be a good time to a new version. Most companies jumped from 2000 to 2003 but I know almost no one who went to XP...don't know how I ended up here starting off with sun, but you get the idea, companies and developers will often pick version numbers unrelated to how the product evolved since the last release.
Am I the only slashdotter who didn't watch star trek?
you can try to use kompose...its for kde but I'm using it on gnome...give it a try and see how you like it
Also I set up a catch all for my clients. They sign up at websites as @domain.com. Then if that domain starts sending spams we add as an alias to the spam@domain.com. This has helped a great deal as people's primary e-mail accounts remain hidden behind the catch all. And it require almost no work for the clients. They can send me a quick note or add it through their "control panel" blacklist...
What do other slashdotters do that are admin's for hosting companies or midsize-big companies? I would be interested
hmmm interesting, whats the command on a *nix shell? I'm used to date, but that was only used as root to set the correct time.
This whole discussion came out of someone asking why not block e-mails where the time was in the past/future and then why not block fake addresses. I hope that I've made it clear why I _believe_ that smtp server's shouldn't drop "fake" addresses where the smtp server's and sender domains aren't matched. If not...its your opinion : ). I just hope you wont block my e-mails :p
Understood, but spam filters will often complain if the From field doesn't have a name, so its benificial to set the from: field. While one is at it, probably set the reply to field. However, I usually just set the from field, as the reply-to will then automatically be the from field...just my preference
heh, oviously one shouldn't spend all day doing nothing. work should occupy almost the entire amount while your at work, but sometimes you hit a bug you can't fix and need time to think or relax...and if someone notices...use 3ddesktop pager program to switch between virtual desktops...usually it gets a "wow, cool" reaction from the non techies when they see things rotate and zoom in and out : )
Well sometimes you send e-mails from fake addresses. Its a necessity...think about all the times you get e-mails from a website. Those usually are all faked from's as often they want you to reply to someone other than the web server's user account. I do it all the time. In fact, I have a few forms on my website, all which when e-mail people are from "different" addresses. So when they reply to the generated addresses they reach real people, not the apache user account.
I've thought about rejecting e-mails from the future or way in the past as well as from non resistant domains, but in the end its better just to deliver it all instead of getting complaints from customers saying they didn't get an e-mail. So just deliver everything and hopefully the anti-spam solution will flag it...but atleast the customer will get it.
While setting back you clock may fool some people, it wont fool anyone who knows about the "header" of an e-mail. A quick peek there and you find all the timestamps of each email server that passed the email along. If there is a "huge" gap inbetween when it was send form "localhost" and the first mailserver...something is up.
Also this doesn't work if one uses webmail where one would have to reset the server's time.
NOT that I don't resolve to such trickery once in a while. Most of our boses won't read the header of a message, and only the true geek has his e-mail viewer set to e-mail source instead of the nice outlook (evolution for me) display. If your cubicle is in a public place, virtual desktops comes in handy. gaim open on desktop 1, quickly move to desktop2 with source code open when you hear footsteps... or for the windows fans, alt tab to a full screen program where you have "actual work" open...
I would be interested in what other slashdotters do, I'm sure we have some pretty original ideas.
So send both to me in the states and I'll split the profit? : )
Petition Google to atleast state that it will work with Linux. It is these things "Require windows XP or Mac OSX" that make people think nothing works with Linux. I see these things all the time on boxes for digital cameras. Let google know that they should provide a download for Linux users.
How else can you count years?
I believe that it can search through open office files, email, gaim chat logs, pictures, and all sorts of things. Similar idea to this mac osX thingie. It has a daemon which monitors for changes (i think). I'm on ubuntu hoary, and its not available there yet, but maybe you can get it in debian unstable. If so, maybe you should review it?
I hope its up to par with spotlight and google desktop search and the likes
THe biggest threat that this Mac OS X on x86 is to windows. Especially with college bound students. Many already have ipods and love them. Knowing that they can try out Mac OSX and if they dont like it, bail for windows. And usually the things we learn in college stick with us...right?
However, this might be sad for us geeks as we may have to work harder for our easily earned 20 an hour fixing computers from their spyware woes. It was an easy and fun run while it lasted, but it's probably for the better. Now that people down the street can use their computers, they may have more interesting jobs for us to do.