That's because there are some people that insist on having their important files saved, and as such, I've made my Mom's Windows Me PC run three years straight without a reinstall. Now, you don't really want me to do something that will upset dear o' Mom, do you?;-) Well, too late. I've wiped her drive four days ago.
I'll be honest with you. If you have only a dial-up link to the net, then it's going to take all night to completely patch any Windows PC except for XP SP2. Firewall, antivirus, all the stuff to prepare it for the internet. If you have broadband, then I envy you because all I'm offered where I'm at is either Wireless, or DirectWAY. I have no line of sight for the wireless transmitter, and DirectWAY is slow, expensive, and has too much latency.
Yeah, I remember back when Windows 95 was the shit that it only took an hour to cure your ills, but back then spyware was nonexistant (or no one was aware of it.) Nobody thought about security until the Ping of Death happened. Hardly anybody ever got a virus, and spam? Who got that? Hell, you was in the fast lane sporting that 28.8 modem back then.
If you have to unmount/home and reinstall linux, that all that it tells me is that you've failed in administrating the machine. Normal users should NEVER have root priviledges!
Or am I reading you wrong and you're trying to restore the/home directory? If you really have idiots for users then just purge/home and say all user accounts are down, then go home early, and then restore the backups after the weekend or something. Tell them they broke 'The Interweb thingy' and offer to show them your blinkenlights or something as proof.;-)
Laptops are known to be a bit of a bitch with Linux due to hardware support issues and proprietary related crap, but I've put Slackware 10 on my desktop dual booting with XP Home, and all the hardware I've got on it works like a charm - including my Haupauge WinTV-GO FM card. I simply snarfed and installed the Nvidia accelerated driver and changed my xorg.conf to suit - instead of using the vesa driver. KDE's great, everything's smooth and responsive, but GNOME? Well, I found that somewhat lacking like 'having a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces' lacking. And, I know my way around the CLI enough to get around when I'm sick of GUIs, but I can always take more suggestions.
If it's Windows 9x/Me and it's constantly crashing and freezing enough to really stymie progress, then 4-5+ hours is a norm. At that point, you might be better off just doing a reformat and reinstall if you really want to get rid of the malware quicker. I'm surely not above doing that when things have degenerated that badly. How would I know it's spyware and not registry damage? Corrupted system files? Anything? Everything?
You could either try a good linux distro that has decent package management like Slackware, and not something retarded like HedRat, or if you have a source tarball, untar it, enter it, then say,
./configure
make
make install
You don't really need an IT degree with Linux, and though some Linux IT sites might have good tips, some of it's really elementary to the point that I get the giggles when I hear the term 'IT' thrown around. Now, playing with Apache? Now that's fun. However, if you want to do something serious like run an enterprise level website with CGI and SQL and all the trimmings, then you'll want the professional training, and not my advice as I don't have THAT much captain in me.
Of course, I've had issues with compiling, too, but that's usually a result of missing a library that a program needs or that a library may be too old. Then again, I've even had issues doubleclicking on the SETUP icon in Windows. DLL Hell? Or a corrupted file? Who knows?
Just keep in mind that all computers suck, and all operating systems suck. If they're that great, then nobody would have problems or need to upgrade, period.
Inconvienience? I'd call it a security breach if you ask me, and it's more than just an inconvienience, it should be a crime. If someone broke into my house and made a mess, it's breaking and entering AND malicious destruction of property. When someone breaks into your computer and fucks up you system files, isn't that ALSO breaking and entering AND malicious destruction of property? No? Then maybe it should be, because NOBODY will take it for the crime that it really is if we just treat it as a simple 'inconvienience.'
If you know your machine well enough, you'll know what's legit and what's 'full of shit'. It's all a matter of being observant with the task manager. For example, lsass.exe is part of Windows, but what if you also find isass.exe in there, too? Well, isass.exe is malicious, otherwise, why would it look like lsass.exe? and where did that isass.exe come from? I don't remember it being there before? It's really all deductive reasoning and it's things like that you have to watch out for. You know, it's this kind of 'private dick' thinking that they don't/can't teach you in school and it takes years of trial and error on your own to really work it down to an artform.
If you really want to, you can run a filename search of any one of the image names that you find in the task manager down in the process tab if you want to be sure. You can check the comments in the version tab if you want, but I wouldn't necessarily count on that all the time. They've been known to be faked by some bad guys. If you get really good at doing that, you'll be able to catch 99% of the hanky panky that goes on out there, with the 1% going to human error because you're bound to screw up every once in a while. Hell, just last week, I had to get rid of something that I never installed, and neither Antivir, nor AVG were picking it up. Turns out it was a Trojan disguised as a Distributed.net program. Now, if I didn't keep a watchful eye on the task manager, I would never have caught it. So yes, it pays dividends to know your machine inside and out.
And for the record, I've never broken a machine by checking off all the startup entries and rebooting. Never even seen it happen, and if you got something flaky like Windows 9x/Me with a bunch of shit running on it at startup, then sometimes you're just better off just unchecking it all and rebooting if you want to go anywhere with ScanDisk and Defrag. Now, if you try checking off all of the Services and then reboot, then you _may_ break something, but the worst I've had happen to me was having to go F8 and restart with last known configuration and having XP deactivating itself, so I had to reactivate over the phone. Course, there's plenty of ways around that kind of problem, too.;-)
Personally, I think the reason why this fool was taking so long was that every time he typed in top at the command line, Windows just kept saying, Bad Command or File Name and he couldn't figure out why.
Morale of the story: Don't get a Linux admin to fix a Windows box and vice versa if you actually want something done.;-)
It's not really Linux as much as it is the web browser.
Now Mozilla and Firefox will warn you and make you wait two seconds before you try to install something unsigned. IE won't even do that unless you instruct it to in the Advanced Settings and sometimes it will do it anyway, but that's what you get for the broken piece of shit they call ActiveX.
Granted, Linux is much more secure than Windows, but when you give Linux to a horribly inept AOL kind of luser, then it won't take long for him/her to get r00t3d, too if the distro leaves services running by default, like for example HedRat. At least with HedRat, you can shut down those services if you know how to do it. Meanwhile in XP, you can't shut down the RPC service without Windows going total batshit. XP won't even let you do it at all! You NEED a firewall just to sweep it under the rug. Now, if that's not a severe and utterly braindamaged flaw in OS design, then would someone tell me WTF is?!? (Aside from IE built into Windows)
IE? I won't touch that rotten shit even with SP2 running AND behind a firewall. That's like giving a five year old kid a loaded gun and telling him to go outside and play Cops and Robbers.
The really nasty ones might take me 2 hours at the most. That's when I'll end up having to play around in the registry.
Worst one I ever had to deal with took me about five hours to do, and that was on a machine that wasn't recently patched, had NO virus scanner, personal firewall, AdAware nor SpyBot. I had to resort to downloading the recent copies onto my PC, burning them onto a CD, transferring them onto the trashed PC, put it in safe mode, and start scrubbing like hell. couple hundred virii here, lots of assorted malware, spyware, adware, tracking cookies and shit everywhere. Reboot, start the firewall, and patch the system with the slow dial-up connection, update the antivirus and adware scanners, rinse, and repeat. And, this was my mother's PC sporting Windows Me and everything.;-) Well, my efforts in educating her about all the evils that exist on the Internet don't seem to be working, but sometimes, she gets pr0n shit that mysteriously installs on the system and I know damn well it's not her that's doing that! So, for those that 'claim' it's always the user's fault, I say, "Bullshit!" I find it difficult to believe that my close-to-sixty year old mother is interested in girl on girl action or needs an electrically powered cock pump.:-(
True, spyware can be almost viral these days, but there is one factor which enables it in the first place: the user.
Sure, but if it wasn't for those sanctimonious scumbags out there writing the spyware, then the user won't have to worry about downloading it. C'mon! That's almost like taking a molotov cocktail, throwing it in someone's house after they open the front door, watch said house burn to the ground, and then blame it on people inside for not catching the firebomb in the first place. Hell, you've already done plenty of damage by the time they figure out it was flaming Death coming after them through the door.
That said, Firefox is good, but a lot more needs to be done and it's not the cure all to end all. Given enough time, crackers and scum will try to rip Firefox asunder, too.
Don't forget that unless you have an administrator's account, you can't install much of anything on Windows, negating the added security of a limited account.
Propaganda? I don't think so. Now about M$'s Get the Facts campaign? That's propaganda.
It takes him no less than FIVE hours to clean all the spyware from a Windows PC? And he has a degree in computer science, RHCE, and ten years of system administration expirence?
You know, that's pretty funny if you ask me, because I can usually do it in about 30-60 minutes or less (give or take), and with no degrees and no professional training whatsoever.
Here's how you do it....
1. Run msconfig
2. Uncheck all startup entries that look suspicious
3. reboot
4. Update and run Lavasoft AdAware
5. Update and run Spybot Search and Destroy
6. If you have them, and you should, update and run your favorite antivirus scanner.
7. Make sure all the spyware leftovers and their folders, if any, are deleted.
8. Run msconfig again and reenable anything legitimate that you might have disabled
9. reboot
Now, why do you want to disable the suspicious shit with msconfig first? If you ever get really 'stubborn to remove' shit like Ebates Moe Money Maker and friends, they're practically impossible to remove just by spyware scanning alone. You have to stop them from loading in the first place before you can get rid of them.
Well, other than the fact that he's laughably inept at cleaning spyware, he's still got a very valid point about just how utterly shitty and insecure the Windows platform is. It's been woefully insecure for years, it's woefully insecure now, and it will be woefully insecure for the unforseeable future. That's not just my opinion, it's a well known fact that Windows has been full of holes since at least since Windows 95, and likely earlier.
So, here we have a company that doesn't give a shit about it's product, doesn't give a shit about it's customers, doesn't give a shit about the law, and still it abuses its monopoly after being convicted of such in court. And as much as I blame Micro$oft for all the ills of the computer world, I'm a lot more pissed off at the consuming public for being the lazy, complacent sheep that they are for tolerating this abuse upon society for as long as they have, and instead of sitting on their fat asses allicted with "Homer Simpson Syndrome", they ought to be complaining to their government enmass and threatening to vote out the whole of Congress itself if that's what it takes to get them to do something about Microsoft. Damn! It's almost like walking into a run down crime ridden neighborhood, and looking at the people in it acting as though it's all normal that the neighborhood is all run down, vagrants and junkies sprawled out on the streets, drug pushers on every block, and hearing the sounds of gunshots, security alarms, and police sirens all the time.
Total batshit insanity, man! Just total batshit! But I guess it's what the people want. They don't really want freedom or justice, they just want to sit on their ass, watch that braindead 'Survivor' or 'American Idol' bullshit and wait for the TV to reprogram them into wanting the latest 'excercise in a bottle' weight loss fad or the latest $50,000 SUV that gets 3 mpg, has a DVD, and increases your penis size a whole 5 inches! What an utter travestry!
Well, that's my rant. Probably won't do anything to change the world no more than that 'Open Letter to a Digital World' will, but who knows? It only takes a few angry and motivated people to get the ball rolling.
The first time I see on a CD the phrase, "This disc has NO copy protection measures...please support the artist by purchasing music," will be the first time that I'll buy a CD in a long, long time.
I can't wait for this stupid DRM bullshit to die off like the sick joke that it is. They'll never get my money with that kind of 'f--k you' attitude towards their consumers.
"Oh, but just go to iTunes where that have lightweight DRM..."
I live close to an area where people cannot get a wire line due to either lack of demand, or prohibitively expensive to service for the income gained, or something like it.
I read in the local paper last year about some guy trying to get a wired line from the local phone company (Verizon) and they told him it would be about $35,000 or so to hook him up, due to there being no local phone network in the area. Far as I know, he's still without a phone though he said he was going to start his own phone company. That's the last I've heard of that story. Still waiting for him to start his own phone company, too.;-)
Case you're all curious, this is not Louisiana, but Northeast Michigan where spots of no land lines aren't unheard of and cell phone service is poor to nonexistant. Basically, I live in a forest and the area is very sparsely populated, but the hunting and fishing is good, girlwatching is a favorite pastime, and you're pretty much guaranteed a White Christmas.
I imagine there's quite a few places in the Upper Penninsula that don't have phone service either as a lot of it is definately undeveloped forestland out there. However, I can't answer anyone that question for sure.
Microsoft is a convicted criminal monopolist that deserves to have its every move spied on, criticized, and looked at with great suspicion. That's not my opinion. Those are FACTS!
Would you expect a child molester to move in your neighborhood and EXPECT people not to spy on him, critisize him, and look at him with great suspicion?
"Oh, but he paid his debt to society." I'd bet you say, but if was really true, then where's my fucking paycheck, huh?
Now, do yourself a favor. Get your head out of your ass and stop drinking the M$ kool-aid.
But if the gov't can't/won't break them up, then who's going to have the balls to go after them with the RICO statute? Do I have any volunteers here? They got so much money that they run almost everybody and anybody (including whole governments) into the ground in legal fees, appeals, and other frivolous bullshit. The only way to beat this well funded beast is to have an en masse switch to Linux, BSD, Apple, and such. It's the ONLY way to bring them to their knees, and you can expect a LOT of collateral damage as a result.
Well by gum, all I got is this here slowpoke v.90 modem with the pretty blinkenlights on top, cuz out here in da sticks, nobody offers that newfangled high speed interweb thingy!;-)
Well actually, there is a company that does offer wireless broadband at a good price, but without an outdoor TV antenna tower, I'll never have 'line-of-sight' with the transmitter. Now, why am I going to bother with putting up a TV tower when I already have DirecTV? I can't justify the expense.
For all we know, that could actually be what M$ is planning to do. Hell, if I was Uncle Bill, then I'd likely do the same thing. That's just good business when you're a blood sucking monopoly. Blood? Milk? What's the difference?
"As a business, it is their responsibility to make a reasonable best effort and compared to 99.9% of the software vendors out there, they're top notch"
Top notch? Is that supposed to be funny? I'm more likely to believe that they spent more man hours on writing and perfecting the Windows Product Activation code than they did doing QA on Windows XP, 2000, Me, and 98 combined.
So begone ye cursed shill. I can smell your horseshit from a mile away.
You can't connect to the network to download SP2 without risking the computer.
Sure you can.
Bullshit! You cannot connect to Windows Update and download SP2 on an unpatched system without getting 0wned in seconds. Not unless you're either behind a router, already have a third party software firewall, or that you have SP2 already in your hands and plan to install it before you first go online. And, you can't count on everybody to have any one of those things, either.
Here's an example....
Mr. Newbie buys his first PC. It has XP Home and it's the gold version. We can already safely assume that he doesn't have something like Zone Alarm, he doesn't have a router, and that he doesn't have SP2 yet, either. Mr. Newbie doesn't know it yet, but he's already going to get fucked when he goes online for the first time. That's because his firewall is OFF by default and he doesn't even know what the icons are yet, let alone how to turn on the firewall.
You see, it's easy to blame Mr. Newbie for his utterly grievous faults, but it seems hard for me to understand why we all choose not to remember that we were ALL once like Mr. Newbie at one point in our lives. So I say 'Remember your roots' and give Mr. Newbie a helping hand instead of being so quick to rip him a new ass. After all, today's newbies may become tomorrow's nerds by the time we become old farts.
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I'm happy for Patrick that he's doing okay now. Linux wouldn't be the same without him.
I'll be honest with you. If you have only a dial-up link to the net, then it's going to take all night to completely patch any Windows PC except for XP SP2. Firewall, antivirus, all the stuff to prepare it for the internet. If you have broadband, then I envy you because all I'm offered where I'm at is either Wireless, or DirectWAY. I have no line of sight for the wireless transmitter, and DirectWAY is slow, expensive, and has too much latency.
Yeah, I remember back when Windows 95 was the shit that it only took an hour to cure your ills, but back then spyware was nonexistant (or no one was aware of it.) Nobody thought about security until the Ping of Death happened. Hardly anybody ever got a virus, and spam? Who got that? Hell, you was in the fast lane sporting that 28.8 modem back then.
If you have to unmount /home and reinstall linux, that all that it tells me is that you've failed in administrating the machine. Normal users should NEVER have root priviledges!
Or am I reading you wrong and you're trying to restore the /home directory? If you really have idiots for users then just purge /home and say all user accounts are down, then go home early, and then restore the backups after the weekend or something. Tell them they broke 'The Interweb thingy' and offer to show them your blinkenlights or something as proof. ;-)
Can't tell. Your message seems ambiguous to me.
Laptops are known to be a bit of a bitch with Linux due to hardware support issues and proprietary related crap, but I've put Slackware 10 on my desktop dual booting with XP Home, and all the hardware I've got on it works like a charm - including my Haupauge WinTV-GO FM card. I simply snarfed and installed the Nvidia accelerated driver and changed my xorg.conf to suit - instead of using the vesa driver. KDE's great, everything's smooth and responsive, but GNOME? Well, I found that somewhat lacking like 'having a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces' lacking. And, I know my way around the CLI enough to get around when I'm sick of GUIs, but I can always take more suggestions.
What a surprise! A woman that has her own mind? ;-)
If it's Windows 9x/Me and it's constantly crashing and freezing enough to really stymie progress, then 4-5+ hours is a norm. At that point, you might be better off just doing a reformat and reinstall if you really want to get rid of the malware quicker. I'm surely not above doing that when things have degenerated that badly. How would I know it's spyware and not registry damage? Corrupted system files? Anything? Everything?
make
make install
You don't really need an IT degree with Linux, and though some Linux IT sites might have good tips, some of it's really elementary to the point that I get the giggles when I hear the term 'IT' thrown around. Now, playing with Apache? Now that's fun. However, if you want to do something serious like run an enterprise level website with CGI and SQL and all the trimmings, then you'll want the professional training, and not my advice as I don't have THAT much captain in me.
Of course, I've had issues with compiling, too, but that's usually a result of missing a library that a program needs or that a library may be too old. Then again, I've even had issues doubleclicking on the SETUP icon in Windows. DLL Hell? Or a corrupted file? Who knows?
Just keep in mind that all computers suck, and all operating systems suck. If they're that great, then nobody would have problems or need to upgrade, period.
Inconvienience? I'd call it a security breach if you ask me, and it's more than just an inconvienience, it should be a crime. If someone broke into my house and made a mess, it's breaking and entering AND malicious destruction of property. When someone breaks into your computer and fucks up you system files, isn't that ALSO breaking and entering AND malicious destruction of property? No? Then maybe it should be, because NOBODY will take it for the crime that it really is if we just treat it as a simple 'inconvienience.'
If you know your machine well enough, you'll know what's legit and what's 'full of shit'. It's all a matter of being observant with the task manager. For example, lsass.exe is part of Windows, but what if you also find isass.exe in there, too? Well, isass.exe is malicious, otherwise, why would it look like lsass.exe? and where did that isass.exe come from? I don't remember it being there before? It's really all deductive reasoning and it's things like that you have to watch out for. You know, it's this kind of 'private dick' thinking that they don't/can't teach you in school and it takes years of trial and error on your own to really work it down to an artform.
If you really want to, you can run a filename search of any one of the image names that you find in the task manager down in the process tab if you want to be sure. You can check the comments in the version tab if you want, but I wouldn't necessarily count on that all the time. They've been known to be faked by some bad guys. If you get really good at doing that, you'll be able to catch 99% of the hanky panky that goes on out there, with the 1% going to human error because you're bound to screw up every once in a while. Hell, just last week, I had to get rid of something that I never installed, and neither Antivir, nor AVG were picking it up. Turns out it was a Trojan disguised as a Distributed.net program. Now, if I didn't keep a watchful eye on the task manager, I would never have caught it. So yes, it pays dividends to know your machine inside and out.
And for the record, I've never broken a machine by checking off all the startup entries and rebooting. Never even seen it happen, and if you got something flaky like Windows 9x/Me with a bunch of shit running on it at startup, then sometimes you're just better off just unchecking it all and rebooting if you want to go anywhere with ScanDisk and Defrag. Now, if you try checking off all of the Services and then reboot, then you _may_ break something, but the worst I've had happen to me was having to go F8 and restart with last known configuration and having XP deactivating itself, so I had to reactivate over the phone. Course, there's plenty of ways around that kind of problem, too. ;-)
Morale of the story: Don't get a Linux admin to fix a Windows box and vice versa if you actually want something done. ;-)
Now Mozilla and Firefox will warn you and make you wait two seconds before you try to install something unsigned. IE won't even do that unless you instruct it to in the Advanced Settings and sometimes it will do it anyway, but that's what you get for the broken piece of shit they call ActiveX.
Granted, Linux is much more secure than Windows, but when you give Linux to a horribly inept AOL kind of luser, then it won't take long for him/her to get r00t3d, too if the distro leaves services running by default, like for example HedRat. At least with HedRat, you can shut down those services if you know how to do it. Meanwhile in XP, you can't shut down the RPC service without Windows going total batshit. XP won't even let you do it at all! You NEED a firewall just to sweep it under the rug. Now, if that's not a severe and utterly braindamaged flaw in OS design, then would someone tell me WTF is?!? (Aside from IE built into Windows)
IE? I won't touch that rotten shit even with SP2 running AND behind a firewall. That's like giving a five year old kid a loaded gun and telling him to go outside and play Cops and Robbers.
Worst one I ever had to deal with took me about five hours to do, and that was on a machine that wasn't recently patched, had NO virus scanner, personal firewall, AdAware nor SpyBot. I had to resort to downloading the recent copies onto my PC, burning them onto a CD, transferring them onto the trashed PC, put it in safe mode, and start scrubbing like hell. couple hundred virii here, lots of assorted malware, spyware, adware, tracking cookies and shit everywhere. Reboot, start the firewall, and patch the system with the slow dial-up connection, update the antivirus and adware scanners, rinse, and repeat. And, this was my mother's PC sporting Windows Me and everything. ;-) Well, my efforts in educating her about all the evils that exist on the Internet don't seem to be working, but sometimes, she gets pr0n shit that mysteriously installs on the system and I know damn well it's not her that's doing that! So, for those that 'claim' it's always the user's fault, I say, "Bullshit!" I find it difficult to believe that my close-to-sixty year old mother is interested in girl on girl action or needs an electrically powered cock pump. :-(
Sure, but if it wasn't for those sanctimonious scumbags out there writing the spyware, then the user won't have to worry about downloading it. C'mon! That's almost like taking a molotov cocktail, throwing it in someone's house after they open the front door, watch said house burn to the ground, and then blame it on people inside for not catching the firebomb in the first place. Hell, you've already done plenty of damage by the time they figure out it was flaming Death coming after them through the door.
That said, Firefox is good, but a lot more needs to be done and it's not the cure all to end all. Given enough time, crackers and scum will try to rip Firefox asunder, too.
Don't forget that unless you have an administrator's account, you can't install much of anything on Windows, negating the added security of a limited account.
Propaganda? I don't think so. Now about M$'s Get the Facts campaign? That's propaganda.
You know, that's pretty funny if you ask me, because I can usually do it in about 30-60 minutes or less (give or take), and with no degrees and no professional training whatsoever.
Here's how you do it....
1. Run msconfig
2. Uncheck all startup entries that look suspicious
3. reboot
4. Update and run Lavasoft AdAware
5. Update and run Spybot Search and Destroy
6. If you have them, and you should, update and run your favorite antivirus scanner.
7. Make sure all the spyware leftovers and their folders, if any, are deleted.
8. Run msconfig again and reenable anything legitimate that you might have disabled
9. reboot
Now, why do you want to disable the suspicious shit with msconfig first? If you ever get really 'stubborn to remove' shit like Ebates Moe Money Maker and friends, they're practically impossible to remove just by spyware scanning alone. You have to stop them from loading in the first place before you can get rid of them.
Well, other than the fact that he's laughably inept at cleaning spyware, he's still got a very valid point about just how utterly shitty and insecure the Windows platform is. It's been woefully insecure for years, it's woefully insecure now, and it will be woefully insecure for the unforseeable future. That's not just my opinion, it's a well known fact that Windows has been full of holes since at least since Windows 95, and likely earlier.
So, here we have a company that doesn't give a shit about it's product, doesn't give a shit about it's customers, doesn't give a shit about the law, and still it abuses its monopoly after being convicted of such in court. And as much as I blame Micro$oft for all the ills of the computer world, I'm a lot more pissed off at the consuming public for being the lazy, complacent sheep that they are for tolerating this abuse upon society for as long as they have, and instead of sitting on their fat asses allicted with "Homer Simpson Syndrome", they ought to be complaining to their government enmass and threatening to vote out the whole of Congress itself if that's what it takes to get them to do something about Microsoft. Damn! It's almost like walking into a run down crime ridden neighborhood, and looking at the people in it acting as though it's all normal that the neighborhood is all run down, vagrants and junkies sprawled out on the streets, drug pushers on every block, and hearing the sounds of gunshots, security alarms, and police sirens all the time.
Total batshit insanity, man! Just total batshit! But I guess it's what the people want. They don't really want freedom or justice, they just want to sit on their ass, watch that braindead 'Survivor' or 'American Idol' bullshit and wait for the TV to reprogram them into wanting the latest 'excercise in a bottle' weight loss fad or the latest $50,000 SUV that gets 3 mpg, has a DVD, and increases your penis size a whole 5 inches! What an utter travestry!
Well, that's my rant. Probably won't do anything to change the world no more than that 'Open Letter to a Digital World' will, but who knows? It only takes a few angry and motivated people to get the ball rolling.
Thanks for the link! I figured that somebody, somewhere felt the same way I did.
I can't wait for this stupid DRM bullshit to die off like the sick joke that it is. They'll never get my money with that kind of 'f--k you' attitude towards their consumers.
"Oh, but just go to iTunes where that have lightweight DRM..."
No thanks, man. Either no DRM, or no sale.
Nothing to see here. Move along, kiddies.
I read in the local paper last year about some guy trying to get a wired line from the local phone company (Verizon) and they told him it would be about $35,000 or so to hook him up, due to there being no local phone network in the area. Far as I know, he's still without a phone though he said he was going to start his own phone company. That's the last I've heard of that story. Still waiting for him to start his own phone company, too. ;-)
Case you're all curious, this is not Louisiana, but Northeast Michigan where spots of no land lines aren't unheard of and cell phone service is poor to nonexistant. Basically, I live in a forest and the area is very sparsely populated, but the hunting and fishing is good, girlwatching is a favorite pastime, and you're pretty much guaranteed a White Christmas.
I imagine there's quite a few places in the Upper Penninsula that don't have phone service either as a lot of it is definately undeveloped forestland out there. However, I can't answer anyone that question for sure.
Would you expect a child molester to move in your neighborhood and EXPECT people not to spy on him, critisize him, and look at him with great suspicion?
"Oh, but he paid his debt to society." I'd bet you say, but if was really true, then where's my fucking paycheck, huh?
Now, do yourself a favor. Get your head out of your ass and stop drinking the M$ kool-aid.
But if the gov't can't/won't break them up, then who's going to have the balls to go after them with the RICO statute? Do I have any volunteers here? They got so much money that they run almost everybody and anybody (including whole governments) into the ground in legal fees, appeals, and other frivolous bullshit. The only way to beat this well funded beast is to have an en masse switch to Linux, BSD, Apple, and such. It's the ONLY way to bring them to their knees, and you can expect a LOT of collateral damage as a result.
Well actually, there is a company that does offer wireless broadband at a good price, but without an outdoor TV antenna tower, I'll never have 'line-of-sight' with the transmitter. Now, why am I going to bother with putting up a TV tower when I already have DirecTV? I can't justify the expense.
For all we know, that could actually be what M$ is planning to do. Hell, if I was Uncle Bill, then I'd likely do the same thing. That's just good business when you're a blood sucking monopoly. Blood? Milk? What's the difference?
Top notch? Is that supposed to be funny? I'm more likely to believe that they spent more man hours on writing and perfecting the Windows Product Activation code than they did doing QA on Windows XP, 2000, Me, and 98 combined.
So begone ye cursed shill. I can smell your horseshit from a mile away.
Sure you can.
Bullshit! You cannot connect to Windows Update and download SP2 on an unpatched system without getting 0wned in seconds. Not unless you're either behind a router, already have a third party software firewall, or that you have SP2 already in your hands and plan to install it before you first go online. And, you can't count on everybody to have any one of those things, either.
Here's an example....
Mr. Newbie buys his first PC. It has XP Home and it's the gold version. We can already safely assume that he doesn't have something like Zone Alarm, he doesn't have a router, and that he doesn't have SP2 yet, either. Mr. Newbie doesn't know it yet, but he's already going to get fucked when he goes online for the first time. That's because his firewall is OFF by default and he doesn't even know what the icons are yet, let alone how to turn on the firewall.
You see, it's easy to blame Mr. Newbie for his utterly grievous faults, but it seems hard for me to understand why we all choose not to remember that we were ALL once like Mr. Newbie at one point in our lives. So I say 'Remember your roots' and give Mr. Newbie a helping hand instead of being so quick to rip him a new ass. After all, today's newbies may become tomorrow's nerds by the time we become old farts.