How about the Peace Corps? I've never done it, but I know people who have. You can work with the Peace Corps to help poor villages/towns/cities/states/countries set up their IT and telecomm systems.
I know that Home Depot uses Linux. Home Depot is a Fortune 500 company, with thousands of IT staffers that can write custom code. I'm looking for a mid-level solution that doesn't require an IT staff. Actually, I'm looking for more than one so that I can have some choice. You just don't get it... the software that I need just doesn't exist on the Linux platform right now. Maybe one day, but right now, there's nothing that can even handle simple payroll. It's pretty sad. I could probably find more solutions that run on the Amiga platform than I could on Linux.
Then we get into the whole concept of the Registry and DLL Hell and so forth. Un-installing an app may not get rid of all of the crap from that app and so you'll have stuff just sitting around waiting to trigger a crash. And different versions of DLL files overwrite each other so re-installing may fix app A, but break app B.
In such a case, you should ask the vendor why they wrote their install program wrong. A monkey could use InstallShield to write an install so that it doesn't make a mess with shared DLL's, and uninstalls itself correctly. I should know... I was one of those monkeys for a while.
That's neat and all, but it still doesn't get me any closer to be able to *DO* anything with Linux. How do I handle payroll, with tax tables that auto-update, and handle all of the various withholding correctly? How do I set up a point-of-sale system that has integrated credit, debit, and gift card processing? A PC with an OS on it (any OS) is about as useful to me as a doorstop. I can't run my business with Firefox and Thunderbird and OpenOffice.
This is a nice idea for home users. If they could find some decent accounting and other business software, I'd consider it. As is, I just can't use Linux for business because it's lacking so much software.
You know, what's really the point of these websites? All of these candidates are just the same political crap-meisters that are in office now. No matter who you vote for, it ultimately won't make much (of any) difference. Just put the goatse.cx pic up and be done with it, because you know that no matter who you vote for, you're gonna get fucked in the ass hard, anyway.
Still, there's no foolproof way to avoid discovery against an omnipotent adversary.
Thanks for ruining my day.
Obviously, I'm not doing anything illegal (otherwise, I'd be posting as an AC), but there's a lot to be said for people being able to be truly anonymous in a public space (such as no fear of retaliation by a potentially hostile/oppressive government).
Oh well. I guess that if somebody has to do something online and be truly anonymous, they can still drive to one of these open networks that is not near their home or job, do their thing, and leave. People do that all of the time with this network, already.
Can you use triangulation if your PC can see only one node on the wireless network? I would think that all the feds would know is that the traffic is coming from MAC address xxx, and it's somewhere in the radius of NAP x. In a city, that could be any one of hundreds or thousands of private homes and businesses, not to mention cars just moving through the area...
From what I can tell, it sounds like an attack can be either minimized or avoided completely if there are enough "server" nodes in the network. The "server" nodes, or the nodes that are exposed to the potential naughtiness, are always in short supply due to people understandably not wanting the FBI to show up to their door, hauling them off to Guantanamo Bay for a round of government-sanctioned torture. The thing is, for the time being, we're seeing a proliferation of completely open (untraceable) wireless networks that could potentially solve this problem. If a relatively large number of geeks were to throw a machine at their local free wireless connections, then they could potentially help out the TOR network for people who don't have access to such an "open" network.
Now, we will eventually see these wide open free-for-alls shut down once the feds get their heads out of their asses and start taking Net-based crime seriously. But for the time being, we should all pitch in and take advantage of these networks while we've got 'em.
I'm working on putting together a few Frankenstein PC's now and they'll be sitting within range of my town's wireless network, and they'll be routing TOR traffic. If somebody does some truly nasty stuff, and it comes out via one of my TOR nodes, then all the federales will be able to see will be the MAC addresses of my network cards, and have no idea where to find said network cards on the wireless network.
Unfortunately, it doesn't really matter when or who got here first. The US slaughtered almost all of them, in what ultimately became one of the most effective examples of genocide in history.
Thats not even counting that it was the Europeans who did most of the genocide in the whole world, just look at Africa and South America.
Africa and South America are both still populated with many millions of native people. When was the last time that you've seen a native person in the continental US? We've got the few that we didn't slaughter locked into "reservations". The US genocide of the native people here was one of the most complete, effective genocides in recent history. Heck, the US was more effective than even Hitler!
It's not like the first world has a monopoly on technology that might be put to military use. Frankly, nowadays i worry more about North Korea.
Well, actually, the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons on human beings in the US. The US unilaterally invaded Iraq for no reason. The US is arguably one of the most violent countries in the world. I worry about the US.
I'm also not surprised... remember... the US is a violent, violent, brutal country. It was founded on the genocide of an entire continent of cultures less than 300 years ago, and has been actively killing foreign people all over the world constantly since WW2. The US: we can't make a TV worth a damn, but we can sure as hell can kill you!
I'm not going to give up buying music, I'm just doing it on iTunes.
That's right... either buy a CD that can be played in most of the billions of CD players on the planet, or buy an iTunes song, with enough DRM that you have to actually burn the damn thing to a CD in order to make a usable copy. That's pretty smart! You've outwitted them, that's for sure!
Uuuh... in all honesty... anybody who cares about how their computer software *looks* A. has waaay to much free time on their hands and B. already uses OSX.
Sorry, but most of us who use computers for work really couldn't care less if the buttons look like my ass or some shiny-chromey-cartoon. Now, go play with making your computer software pretty...
Well, if MS hadn't bought these guys, I would never have heard of them. MS also bundles on a very nice support package onto it. I really don't mind... it's nice to know that if my cash registers decide to go haywire, I can get somebody on the phone 24/7.
But yeah, the OSS alternatives in this area are just... well... really kinda' sad. I've been looking for a new system for about a year now, and I'm 99.9% positive that there's no OSS solution for what I need (mid range accounting and point-of-sale).
They're doing this with Microsoft Dynamics (their new business software). It's not 50%... it's like 10% of the purchase price for those products. It's MUCH cheaper than the alternative, which is primarily Intuit, who push out a new version every year, and support their old versions for sometimes not much more than a year, making it so that you essentially have to buy all new software every year.
There's no free stuff that's even remotely useful for businesses of my size. I've looked extensively. I'm happy to pay a few grand a year, considering the alternatives.
We're probably going to be moving to Microsoft Dynamics (mid size business financial software) partially because it IS pay as you go. The alternative is buying expensive new versions every year from the competition. Very often, bug fixes are simply not released for "old" versions, and the answer to fix something is to "buy the new version". MS's pricing on at least their "Dynamics" products is cheaper than the competition, which essentially forces you to re-purchase all of your software on an annual basis. Also, with pay-as-you-go, support is usually included.
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How about the Peace Corps? I've never done it, but I know people who have. You can work with the Peace Corps to help poor villages/towns/cities/states/countries set up their IT and telecomm systems.
Pure science can't really fund itself. Applied science does fine, because applied scientists can turn their science into products and services.
Out of curiosity, is the UK also seeing a surge in Jeebus-people who are anti-science, similar to what we're seeing in the US?
I know that Home Depot uses Linux. Home Depot is a Fortune 500 company, with thousands of IT staffers that can write custom code. I'm looking for a mid-level solution that doesn't require an IT staff. Actually, I'm looking for more than one so that I can have some choice. You just don't get it... the software that I need just doesn't exist on the Linux platform right now. Maybe one day, but right now, there's nothing that can even handle simple payroll. It's pretty sad. I could probably find more solutions that run on the Amiga platform than I could on Linux.
Then we get into the whole concept of the Registry and DLL Hell and so forth. Un-installing an app may not get rid of all of the crap from that app and so you'll have stuff just sitting around waiting to trigger a crash. And different versions of DLL files overwrite each other so re-installing may fix app A, but break app B.
In such a case, you should ask the vendor why they wrote their install program wrong. A monkey could use InstallShield to write an install so that it doesn't make a mess with shared DLL's, and uninstalls itself correctly. I should know... I was one of those monkeys for a while.
That's neat and all, but it still doesn't get me any closer to be able to *DO* anything with Linux. How do I handle payroll, with tax tables that auto-update, and handle all of the various withholding correctly? How do I set up a point-of-sale system that has integrated credit, debit, and gift card processing? A PC with an OS on it (any OS) is about as useful to me as a doorstop. I can't run my business with Firefox and Thunderbird and OpenOffice.
That's what I thought. Linux is still a joke.
Can you name a single accounting package that runs on Linux with all of the functionality of plain ol' Quickbooks?
How do you pay employees with gnuCash?
This is a nice idea for home users. If they could find some decent accounting and other business software, I'd consider it. As is, I just can't use Linux for business because it's lacking so much software.
You know, what's really the point of these websites? All of these candidates are just the same political crap-meisters that are in office now. No matter who you vote for, it ultimately won't make much (of any) difference. Just put the goatse.cx pic up and be done with it, because you know that no matter who you vote for, you're gonna get fucked in the ass hard, anyway.
Still, there's no foolproof way to avoid discovery against an omnipotent adversary.
Thanks for ruining my day.
Obviously, I'm not doing anything illegal (otherwise, I'd be posting as an AC), but there's a lot to be said for people being able to be truly anonymous in a public space (such as no fear of retaliation by a potentially hostile/oppressive government).
Oh well. I guess that if somebody has to do something online and be truly anonymous, they can still drive to one of these open networks that is not near their home or job, do their thing, and leave. People do that all of the time with this network, already.
Can you use triangulation if your PC can see only one node on the wireless network? I would think that all the feds would know is that the traffic is coming from MAC address xxx, and it's somewhere in the radius of NAP x. In a city, that could be any one of hundreds or thousands of private homes and businesses, not to mention cars just moving through the area...
From what I can tell, it sounds like an attack can be either minimized or avoided completely if there are enough "server" nodes in the network. The "server" nodes, or the nodes that are exposed to the potential naughtiness, are always in short supply due to people understandably not wanting the FBI to show up to their door, hauling them off to Guantanamo Bay for a round of government-sanctioned torture. The thing is, for the time being, we're seeing a proliferation of completely open (untraceable) wireless networks that could potentially solve this problem. If a relatively large number of geeks were to throw a machine at their local free wireless connections, then they could potentially help out the TOR network for people who don't have access to such an "open" network. Now, we will eventually see these wide open free-for-alls shut down once the feds get their heads out of their asses and start taking Net-based crime seriously. But for the time being, we should all pitch in and take advantage of these networks while we've got 'em. I'm working on putting together a few Frankenstein PC's now and they'll be sitting within range of my town's wireless network, and they'll be routing TOR traffic. If somebody does some truly nasty stuff, and it comes out via one of my TOR nodes, then all the federales will be able to see will be the MAC addresses of my network cards, and have no idea where to find said network cards on the wireless network.
Unfortunately, it doesn't really matter when or who got here first. The US slaughtered almost all of them, in what ultimately became one of the most effective examples of genocide in history.
Thats not even counting that it was the Europeans who did most of the genocide in the whole world, just look at Africa and South America.
Africa and South America are both still populated with many millions of native people. When was the last time that you've seen a native person in the continental US? We've got the few that we didn't slaughter locked into "reservations". The US genocide of the native people here was one of the most complete, effective genocides in recent history. Heck, the US was more effective than even Hitler!
It's not like the first world has a monopoly on technology that might be put to military use. Frankly, nowadays i worry more about North Korea.
Well, actually, the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons on human beings in the US. The US unilaterally invaded Iraq for no reason. The US is arguably one of the most violent countries in the world. I worry about the US.
Personally, I just see Vista being SP3 for Windows XP with some lame themes
I agree. I've already switched my Vista box back to "Classic" as much as possible. As long as it does everything that XP does, I'm happy.
I'm also not surprised... remember... the US is a violent, violent, brutal country. It was founded on the genocide of an entire continent of cultures less than 300 years ago, and has been actively killing foreign people all over the world constantly since WW2. The US: we can't make a TV worth a damn, but we can sure as hell can kill you!
I'm not going to give up buying music, I'm just doing it on iTunes.
That's right... either buy a CD that can be played in most of the billions of CD players on the planet, or buy an iTunes song, with enough DRM that you have to actually burn the damn thing to a CD in order to make a usable copy. That's pretty smart! You've outwitted them, that's for sure!
Uuuh... in all honesty... anybody who cares about how their computer software *looks* A. has waaay to much free time on their hands and B. already uses OSX. Sorry, but most of us who use computers for work really couldn't care less if the buttons look like my ass or some shiny-chromey-cartoon. Now, go play with making your computer software pretty...
Well, if MS hadn't bought these guys, I would never have heard of them. MS also bundles on a very nice support package onto it. I really don't mind... it's nice to know that if my cash registers decide to go haywire, I can get somebody on the phone 24/7.
But yeah, the OSS alternatives in this area are just... well... really kinda' sad. I've been looking for a new system for about a year now, and I'm 99.9% positive that there's no OSS solution for what I need (mid range accounting and point-of-sale).
They're doing this with Microsoft Dynamics (their new business software). It's not 50%... it's like 10% of the purchase price for those products. It's MUCH cheaper than the alternative, which is primarily Intuit, who push out a new version every year, and support their old versions for sometimes not much more than a year, making it so that you essentially have to buy all new software every year.
There's no free stuff that's even remotely useful for businesses of my size. I've looked extensively. I'm happy to pay a few grand a year, considering the alternatives.
We're probably going to be moving to Microsoft Dynamics (mid size business financial software) partially because it IS pay as you go. The alternative is buying expensive new versions every year from the competition. Very often, bug fixes are simply not released for "old" versions, and the answer to fix something is to "buy the new version". MS's pricing on at least their "Dynamics" products is cheaper than the competition, which essentially forces you to re-purchase all of your software on an annual basis. Also, with pay-as-you-go, support is usually included.