Why is an iPod a tool of theft? Isn't that what CD and DVD burners are for? This reminds me of an assanine policy set forth by one of the departments I support:
"We insist that our staff carry USB hard disks no larger than 32MB. Anything larger will permit unauthorized software to be installed".
WTF? What does the size of the device have to do with anything? Of course, 32MB drives are getting harder to find, and are getting to be more expensive than their 128MB counterparts. Imagine arguing with a distributor that you in fact need 32MB drives, even though it makes way more sense to buy 128MB drives.
Data theft breaks down to this: all data can be stolen. Most businesses have the tools available to walk off with gigs of company data. An employee who wants to take data home can take it, regardless of banning certain devices.
This "virus" is not detected by antivirus software, according to the article. Does anyone know why? I run eTrust on my IIS boxen. (yes, I have a few, no I didn't put them there, no, they shouldn't be there, but our dev team wants ASP) Etrust is a fine product, but supposedly this offending code isn't detected. That bothers me a little, but this leads to another question.
Why isn't spyware classified as viral code? I realize it doesn't spread in the same manner as a virus, but it a) installs itself uninvited b) causes the PC and its software to behave erratically and c) makes my job needlessly more difficult. It bothers me that virus scanners aren't picking up spyware.
Anyway, to bring this back on topic, this situation requires a server side fix. I'm sorry, I can't tell every customer to switch browsers. I can't even get my internal users to switch. Most can't, because of some oddly coded piece of software that only runs in IE. My point is, my boxen might be infected right now. Not caught by AV software, how am I supposed to determine whether this thing lives on my server?
I use the same root password for all of my test boxes. It's 15 characters and made up of random letters and numbers. What is it? I have no idea:-)
I can type my password, but if you asked for it I couldn't tell you what it is. The other day someone needed my password for one of the test boxes. I had to open vi, type in the password, and read it back to them.
The only problem with this is that it takes so long to remember such a password, so as soon as you learn it you can't change it often.
The FCC has info on MPE (Maximum Permissable Exposure)limits for RF. This equates power and frequency top determine how close you can be and for how long. The best info I can find is that 802.11 puts out on the order of 50 mW. According to the FCC, a device at 2.4Ghz transmitting.2W (200 mW) requires a safe distance of 2.5 cm, or 1 inch from the transmitter. I can't remember that math to narrow that down, but somehow you divide the power by 4 and take the inverse square of the distance to determine the safe distance. Even if you're within the safe distance, that number is for 6 minutes before it starts to heat body tissue. In other words, unless you're grabbing onto the antenna and holding onto it for 6 min, you're just fine.
I'm not an expert, but I think I can clear up the databasing issue. From what I've seen and read, WinFS is just utilizing the database mechanisms already in place. The metadata is already stored in redundant databases, which achieves a journal like effect (not true journaling, as the process of sync'ing databases is somewhat resource intensive, but it's close). WinFS just takes that already stored metadata and puts it to good use. As I understand it, opening Word and trying to open "myfile.doc" is not any more work than opening "C:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\Myfile.doc" at the NTFS level.
The WinFS stuff is just an overlay, and AFAIK it doesn't add any overhead to the FS itself. The groundwork is already in place, WinFS is just utilizing more of the capabilities behind NTFS.
I agree, it would be an interesting test. If I'm not mistaken, NTFS is a journaling filesystem as well. Its databasing design is really interesting to me.. is there something similar to this in linux journaling filesystems?
WinFS is designed to utilize the database feature, I'd be really curious about the results of searching for a file in NTFS/WinFS versus a linux file system. Hopefully NTFS linux support improves to the point where we can safely use it as a linux filesystem.
Data recovery is my biggest issue right now with linux. It's damn near impossible to rescue data off a failed linux disk. Even just deleting a file is tough to recover from. NTFS has a nice selection of tools (albeit non-free) to safely and reliably recover data.
IIRC, 2.4 saw 12 or 13 revisions in its first year. It wasn't until 2.4.16 that I even started using it, because of all the bugs. Right around 2.4.18 it got my OK and I stopped using 2.2 kernels. Now it's up to 2.4.26, only 8 changes in over a year.
2.6 is actually a bit slower in its release cycle. I've also found the 2.5 stuff to be more stable than the 2.3 codebase. I'm guessing I'll be using 2.6 regularly in the coming months, probably around 2.6.8.
XP is expensive, even by volume licensing an organization with 1000+ machines is a costly thing to licence
Most businesses upgrade their OS with new hardware. Windows XP Pro is really cheap when it comes preinstalled on the box. The cost of the OS is hidden, and most businesses it's considered a free OS. Buying a PC WITHOUT Windows is a difficult task, and will probably end up costing more in the long run.
b) Most of our machines won't run XP. They won't run win2k very well
I installed XP on a PIII-550 with 256MB of RAM. It wasn't the fastest thing in the world, but so far I've had no complaints that the system is slow. It actually performed better than I expected.
c) Upgrading/replacing all our machines to run a new OS is more expensive than the OS. Moreover, with the MS track record, by the time it was done there would be a new OS.
Again, most businesses find it easier to bring in a new OS with new hardware. Low cost for the OS, plus hardware designed to run it and run it well. I predict that when Longhorn starts shipping on OEM boxes the cost difference will be negligible.
Seriously, I had no clue what people were talking about until I started using webmail. Everyone was talking about obscene pictures in their e-mail, why didn't I get any of those? I finally realized I was getting them, I just had a really nice filter.
If you want to avoid pr0n spam, use pine. If you want pr0n spam, stop using pine.
Not to mention car insurance and title fees. A $500 car will pay for itself in about a month.
I proudly drive my 1991 Ford Probe. 220,000 miles on that baby. Exhaust system fell apart last fall, I just cut it all off. Catalytic convertor is fine and my neighbors don't mind the sound of a diesel truck. New brakes: $20 + beer for the guy installing them. I found out the other day that my car has been running for about a month with almost no oil. I know my engine doesn't hold 5 quarts, so if I add 4 and it's still a bit low... well, you do the math. That obnoxious clanging sound went away too. My wife is less scared of driving it now. It runs quieter and stops at intersections now.
I hardly call myself brain damaged though. I just like not having to think about things.
It's nice to be able to listen to music without having to build a playlist. I listen to music at work all the time. I'm usually only at my desk 50% of my day, so while a 2 hour playlist would be OK for a few days my co-irkers would kill me (some are chained to their desks and would tire quickly). I usually listen to streaming audio (Live365.com kicks ass) because I never have to worry about playlisting or picking songs I want to hear. Punch in a good station, crank it up, all taken care of.
If I owned an iPod, I'd probably be jogging or working in the yard or something. I don't care about my playlist, as it's unlikely I have crappy music in my iPod. Random shuffle is a lot less work, especially since I usually don't care.
Might be. I see that IBM has a similar program, but the program I'm thinking of was actually UPS doing the legwork.
At any rate, these programs exist and are the easiest way to safely get rid of your crap.
what happened to the UPS program?
on
Control-Alt-Recycle
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
A few years back (sorry, can't find the link) UPS had an offer going. Send them $30, and they send you a prepaid shipping label. You put all the crap you don't want into a box, slap on the shipping label, and UPS takes care of properly recycling and parting out your old crap. A good, cheap way to clean all that antique hardware out of your basement and do it properly.
while that's a lot more than you or I make, $125K is low for the standard of quality they represent.
The Friends cast made $1 million per episode in this, their last season (and that's what, 8-9 seasons?). For being on the air for 14 seasons, and vieing for the longest running sitcom in history, $125K is cheating them. I can see their point.
It's been mentioned once before, but the Simpsons has not jumped the shark. The reason being that a lot of the humor in the episode is very subtle, and usually hard to catch the first time you see it.
Take, for instance, the Angry Dad episode. That thing sucked. For whatever reaosn, I ended up watching it on a rerun last night. I laughed my ass off. I missed a lot of the jokes the first time around, and it was pretty funny.
So, wait til the new season is on reruns, and you too will agree that it's still funny as hell.
The suffering and misfortune of the powerless is sport now. Televised sport.
The Apprentice is not really a "firing". It's an extended job interview. Donald Trump "firing" people on the show is just sensationalizing it for TV. These people are not actually employed yet, and they know what they're getting into.
I was just thinking that. Today's stories are really lame in comparison to previous years. Gems from the past like the evil bit RFC and Wheatonix made/. worth reading on April 1. Nothing even close this year.
Re:in other news...
on
PC In An XP Box
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
wouldn't time be better spent on other, more worthwhile projects than building a computer in a box?
I don't know how to cure cancer. Not a clue. I'm not even sure how to help raise money. Cancer is bad, I don't have a clue how to help. I don't know how to cure AIDS either, so don't ask. Hell, I don't know how to cure ham.
I DO know how to shove little boards into little boxes and install linux on them. If you'll excuse me, I'll do that instead.
They've added links to get easier access to their other stuff like Google labs, catalog searches, etc. I miss the tabs, but access to Google features are several mouse clicks closer now.
I think taking away the pretty tabs was a step backwards, but it's nice to see that they've made the site easier to navigate.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is an iPod a tool of theft? Isn't that what CD and DVD burners are for? This reminds me of an assanine policy set forth by one of the departments I support:
"We insist that our staff carry USB hard disks no larger than 32MB. Anything larger will permit unauthorized software to be installed".
WTF? What does the size of the device have to do with anything? Of course, 32MB drives are getting harder to find, and are getting to be more expensive than their 128MB counterparts. Imagine arguing with a distributor that you in fact need 32MB drives, even though it makes way more sense to buy 128MB drives.
Data theft breaks down to this: all data can be stolen. Most businesses have the tools available to walk off with gigs of company data. An employee who wants to take data home can take it, regardless of banning certain devices.
This "virus" is not detected by antivirus software, according to the article. Does anyone know why? I run eTrust on my IIS boxen. (yes, I have a few, no I didn't put them there, no, they shouldn't be there, but our dev team wants ASP) Etrust is a fine product, but supposedly this offending code isn't detected. That bothers me a little, but this leads to another question.
Why isn't spyware classified as viral code? I realize it doesn't spread in the same manner as a virus, but it a) installs itself uninvited b) causes the PC and its software to behave erratically and c) makes my job needlessly more difficult. It bothers me that virus scanners aren't picking up spyware.
Anyway, to bring this back on topic, this situation requires a server side fix. I'm sorry, I can't tell every customer to switch browsers. I can't even get my internal users to switch. Most can't, because of some oddly coded piece of software that only runs in IE. My point is, my boxen might be infected right now. Not caught by AV software, how am I supposed to determine whether this thing lives on my server?
I use the same root password for all of my test boxes. It's 15 characters and made up of random letters and numbers. What is it? I have no idea :-)
I can type my password, but if you asked for it I couldn't tell you what it is. The other day someone needed my password for one of the test boxes. I had to open vi, type in the password, and read it back to them.
The only problem with this is that it takes so long to remember such a password, so as soon as you learn it you can't change it often.
Maybe because it hasn't needed updating.
:-)
a qmail user are you?
I hope he has a camera filming his server. His next video: Slashdotting at Mach6.
The FCC has info on MPE (Maximum Permissable Exposure)limits for RF. This equates power and frequency top determine how close you can be and for how long. The best info I can find is that 802.11 puts out on the order of 50 mW. According to the FCC, a device at 2.4Ghz transmitting .2W (200 mW) requires a safe distance of 2.5 cm, or 1 inch from the transmitter. I can't remember that math to narrow that down, but somehow you divide the power by 4 and take the inverse square of the distance to determine the safe distance. Even if you're within the safe distance, that number is for 6 minutes before it starts to heat body tissue. In other words, unless you're grabbing onto the antenna and holding onto it for 6 min, you're just fine.
don't you mean bovine cluster?
I'm not an expert, but I think I can clear up the databasing issue. From what I've seen and read, WinFS is just utilizing the database mechanisms already in place. The metadata is already stored in redundant databases, which achieves a journal like effect (not true journaling, as the process of sync'ing databases is somewhat resource intensive, but it's close). WinFS just takes that already stored metadata and puts it to good use. As I understand it, opening Word and trying to open "myfile.doc" is not any more work than opening "C:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\Myfile.doc" at the NTFS level.
The WinFS stuff is just an overlay, and AFAIK it doesn't add any overhead to the FS itself. The groundwork is already in place, WinFS is just utilizing more of the capabilities behind NTFS.
I agree, it would be an interesting test. If I'm not mistaken, NTFS is a journaling filesystem as well. Its databasing design is really interesting to me.. is there something similar to this in linux journaling filesystems?
WinFS is designed to utilize the database feature, I'd be really curious about the results of searching for a file in NTFS/WinFS versus a linux file system. Hopefully NTFS linux support improves to the point where we can safely use it as a linux filesystem.
Data recovery is my biggest issue right now with linux. It's damn near impossible to rescue data off a failed linux disk. Even just deleting a file is tough to recover from. NTFS has a nice selection of tools (albeit non-free) to safely and reliably recover data.
IIRC, 2.4 saw 12 or 13 revisions in its first year. It wasn't until 2.4.16 that I even started using it, because of all the bugs. Right around 2.4.18 it got my OK and I stopped using 2.2 kernels. Now it's up to 2.4.26, only 8 changes in over a year.
2.6 is actually a bit slower in its release cycle. I've also found the 2.5 stuff to be more stable than the 2.3 codebase. I'm guessing I'll be using 2.6 regularly in the coming months, probably around 2.6.8.
find it ironic that an ad for Microsoft security services accompanies this story?
XP is expensive, even by volume licensing an organization with 1000+ machines is a costly thing to licence
Most businesses upgrade their OS with new hardware. Windows XP Pro is really cheap when it comes preinstalled on the box. The cost of the OS is hidden, and most businesses it's considered a free OS. Buying a PC WITHOUT Windows is a difficult task, and will probably end up costing more in the long run.
b) Most of our machines won't run XP. They won't run win2k very well
I installed XP on a PIII-550 with 256MB of RAM. It wasn't the fastest thing in the world, but so far I've had no complaints that the system is slow. It actually performed better than I expected.
c) Upgrading/replacing all our machines to run a new OS is more expensive than the OS. Moreover, with the MS track record, by the time it was done there would be a new OS.
Again, most businesses find it easier to bring in a new OS with new hardware. Low cost for the OS, plus hardware designed to run it and run it well. I predict that when Longhorn starts shipping on OEM boxes the cost difference will be negligible.
Quick hint: stop using pine.
Seriously, I had no clue what people were talking about until I started using webmail. Everyone was talking about obscene pictures in their e-mail, why didn't I get any of those? I finally realized I was getting them, I just had a really nice filter.
If you want to avoid pr0n spam, use pine. If you want pr0n spam, stop using pine.
Not to mention car insurance and title fees. A $500 car will pay for itself in about a month.
I proudly drive my 1991 Ford Probe. 220,000 miles on that baby. Exhaust system fell apart last fall, I just cut it all off. Catalytic convertor is fine and my neighbors don't mind the sound of a diesel truck. New brakes: $20 + beer for the guy installing them. I found out the other day that my car has been running for about a month with almost no oil. I know my engine doesn't hold 5 quarts, so if I add 4 and it's still a bit low... well, you do the math. That obnoxious clanging sound went away too. My wife is less scared of driving it now. It runs quieter and stops at intersections now.
I hardly call myself brain damaged though. I just like not having to think about things.
It's nice to be able to listen to music without having to build a playlist. I listen to music at work all the time. I'm usually only at my desk 50% of my day, so while a 2 hour playlist would be OK for a few days my co-irkers would kill me (some are chained to their desks and would tire quickly). I usually listen to streaming audio (Live365.com kicks ass) because I never have to worry about playlisting or picking songs I want to hear. Punch in a good station, crank it up, all taken care of.
If I owned an iPod, I'd probably be jogging or working in the yard or something. I don't care about my playlist, as it's unlikely I have crappy music in my iPod. Random shuffle is a lot less work, especially since I usually don't care.
Might be. I see that IBM has a similar program, but the program I'm thinking of was actually UPS doing the legwork.
At any rate, these programs exist and are the easiest way to safely get rid of your crap.
A few years back (sorry, can't find the link) UPS had an offer going. Send them $30, and they send you a prepaid shipping label. You put all the crap you don't want into a box, slap on the shipping label, and UPS takes care of properly recycling and parting out your old crap. A good, cheap way to clean all that antique hardware out of your basement and do it properly.
Slashdot: Corporate America in your PC.
Linux: Corporate America flat on its ass.
while that's a lot more than you or I make, $125K is low for the standard of quality they represent.
The Friends cast made $1 million per episode in this, their last season (and that's what, 8-9 seasons?). For being on the air for 14 seasons, and vieing for the longest running sitcom in history, $125K is cheating them. I can see their point.
It's been mentioned once before, but the Simpsons has not jumped the shark. The reason being that a lot of the humor in the episode is very subtle, and usually hard to catch the first time you see it.
Take, for instance, the Angry Dad episode. That thing sucked. For whatever reaosn, I ended up watching it on a rerun last night. I laughed my ass off. I missed a lot of the jokes the first time around, and it was pretty funny.
So, wait til the new season is on reruns, and you too will agree that it's still funny as hell.
Since today is apparently the day of walking dead software, when can I expect a linux version of Wordstar?
The suffering and misfortune of the powerless is sport now. Televised sport.
The Apprentice is not really a "firing". It's an extended job interview. Donald Trump "firing" people on the show is just sensationalizing it for TV. These people are not actually employed yet, and they know what they're getting into.
I was just thinking that. Today's stories are really lame in comparison to previous years. Gems from the past like the evil bit RFC and Wheatonix made /. worth reading on April 1. Nothing even close this year.
wouldn't time be better spent on other, more worthwhile projects than building a computer in a box?
I don't know how to cure cancer. Not a clue. I'm not even sure how to help raise money. Cancer is bad, I don't have a clue how to help. I don't know how to cure AIDS either, so don't ask. Hell, I don't know how to cure ham.
I DO know how to shove little boards into little boxes and install linux on them. If you'll excuse me, I'll do that instead.
They've added links to get easier access to their other stuff like Google labs, catalog searches, etc. I miss the tabs, but access to Google features are several mouse clicks closer now.
I think taking away the pretty tabs was a step backwards, but it's nice to see that they've made the site easier to navigate.