I totally disagree. It completely skirts the issue that got them into hot water: commingling. Now, it's possible that Wired didn't list all the punishments, there may be more that are in the works to deal with commingling. In all honesty, do you believe MS will adhere to these? It almost sounds like the justice dept is saying "well, we know it's going on, but now we're WATCHING you.. and if you mess up, we'll REALLY be watching you... and that's a promise!".
shhh... don't give them ideas! Actually, you do raise a very good point. What happens when other "rentable" software starts doing this? Like, for instance, what M$ has been trying to figure out with Office. The whole "planned obselecence" crap. This brings it to a whole new level, and it ain't gonna be pretty.
I'm no political analyst, but IIRC "Bush Administration" != "George W". And for those of you who are wondering, the BBC article names the Bush administration. There's no mention of it in CNN.
The ONLY use I could see for such a device is if you can add a network card and make a nice little X term. Otherwise it only scores point in the "oooohhh" category. Sure, it's fun to have a touch screen phone but unless it can play MP3s and DivX;-) movies what's the point? And as someone else pointed out, there's no camera, so video conferencing is out of the question.
You're kidding, right? Computer Renassaince is the worst place to buy or sell stuff. They have nice low end PII systems that cost MORE than an E-machine with 17" monitor. They don't give you decent cash for hardware and they sell it for rediculous prices. My local CR has a nice area I call the "legacy scrap heap", a place where you can buy REALLY old hardware at the price it's worth. 486 CPUs for 99 cents, 30 pin SIMMS, etc. Otherwise if it's on the shelf you're paying too much. Used floppy drives: $30. 210 MB hard drive: $40. It's rediculous.
When I first started reading/., I wondered why whenever JonKatz posted the only things that got modded up were well-written flames against him and not the article.
Well, now I see why. Jon, your article is interesting but you're writing to the wrong crowd. I know how to use e-mail as a tool, the way it was intended. What you're talking about is more suited for the non-geek masses who don't. Take for example that teacher's e-mail issues. Her problem is not so much that students are turning to e-mail but that she's not understanding how to manage it. E-mail doesn't change anything in this instance. Before e-mail I'm sure she got phone calls telling her the same thing.
I personally see e-mail as more managable than phone calls. I can file things away and archive the important stuff for as long as I need it. Today's PIMs are an awesome tool. Think about this: a school district. The students are using Evolution to manage their calendar and e-mail. Imagine the power a teacher has, being able to post assignment dates and so forth on their calendars. No excuses, the PIM doesn't lie. Every student can pull up their assignments for the next few days, no excuses.
I have to ask... how much did you know about NT when you started? This is what bothers me about my current company. We can't even consider linux because I'm the only person who understands it enough to admin a box. We have no NT people on staff, yet the addition of Microsoft servers was a must. So for whatever reason, the company spent thousands of $$ to get us into all sorts of training classes and set up test networks so we could break the OS and try to fix it and stuff. Why? Because no one here understood the OS. When I mention we can do the same thing with linux but come out far cheaper because of the hardware and software cost savings they tell me "we don't want to go through THAT again". Go figure.
Yes, this story was written to sensationalize and dramatize the actual conversion. Getting past that, though, all the events mentioned are easily replicable. Replacing a 6 server NT cluster with a pentium class machine running linux? Yup. I believe it. NT likes dedicated machines (I suspect a licensing tactic there, another machine == more fees) yet linux can handle many services with incredibly little power. The server may have been a little taxed, handling 7,000 e-mail accounts on a single pentium box may stress it a little, but other than e-mail taking a little longer to send the end users won't notice. On NT the server would BSOD and e-mail would be down. Linux gets slow under pressure. NT crashes. Big difference in terms of $$ there.
I didn't switch to linux because someone told me too, I switched because I needed an alternative OS. This is a good sign of things to come. Build a better OS, and people will come. Of course, it helps that Microsoft enforces license policies that soak consumers for every penny they're worth and even corporation who WANT to be legal are unsure of their licensing. The more Microsoft starts bullying people around, the more enticing free software becomes. If Microsoft ever stoops to the level of leased OS's there will be a whole lot more stories like this one.
I just assumed that "Athlon 1600" meant 1.6 Ghz. I like AMD's idea of ditching clock speed since it's irrelevant. I don't agree with a model number that closely resembles a clock speed. There are morons who work at Best Buy and other computer chains that are going to tell consumers that the machine is 1.6 Ghz. Why? Because it just makes sense and they don't know any better than the consumer. Then Best Buy will get sued for false advertising when someone figures it out. I would personally like to see model numbers like "A0108" (Athlon released Aug 2001). Any guess that it represents a 1.4 Ghz chip? Not really.
but I (not being a lawyer) have to think that guy's statement to be blantantly wrong.
Yes, he is wrong. Most AUP's prohibit this, even though there's not much they can do. It's perfectly legal for me to plug in the Linksys router/switch/access point and share the connection with my laptop. So if my neighbor points his Linksys card at me and starts leeching bandwidth, am I violating it? Will my ISP try to stop me? By setting up a wireless access point you're giving everyone around you free bandwidth. Using AirSnort you can get the MAC addresses, reprogram your card and you have instant internet, free of charge. So, what it comes down to is that yes it's against your policy but what can anyone do about it?
does anyone have any info on getting an abacus to use wireless ethernet?
I can't find a good article on it, but you could use the sounds made from the abacus as a modem. Granted, it'd be a slower connection but it would be wireless to several feet. The sounds made by an abacus are more digital than analog so you could send an audible digital tone (a series of clicks) and use a speaker on the Betamax (long live beta!) to recieve the signal. Just set up PPP on/dev/audio and you should be able to run a room's length wirelessly. Just don't tell/. about it, I'd hate to see your abacus get DDoS'd.
I know it's been posted already, but $560 == $107 according to Pricewatch this morning. Explain to me how you can even make an educated comparison on these chips. You're paying an extra $400 for the ability to tell your friends you're running at 2 Ghz, and to heat your home. IMHO Intel is shooting themselves in the foot with their ridiculous pricing. The 1.3 P4's are still more than a 1.4 T-bird, and the T-bird smokes the 1.3 P4 in every test. I have to wonder why anyone without Pointy Hair would consider purchasing one.
I do realize the complexity of hijacking a packet. Yes, my post was completely theoretical, but then again most attacks start with a good theory. I don't know the first thing about WAP but if it has any sort of error detection (such as filtering out weaker "ghost" signals) you may be able to RF shield the the trusted host and assume it's indentity with another. The wireless device will go for the stronger source and viola, you have a hijacking. The inital ideas I have on the subject could only be done in a lab, in the real world it'd be tougher to do (climbing towers while carrying 100 square feet of sheet metal and so forth). Anyway, this is all theory but hand it to an engineering student and it'll only be a matter of time when this happens.
in the very first paragraph. Anything that can be programmed can be programmed to do bad things. In my opinion, wireless opens up a new door. Since all devices must communicate over open air, they're easily sniffed. Just wait until someone figures out how to HIJACK a packet and trick the wireless device into thinking it's contacting a trusted host when in fact it's exchanging packets with a trojaned host. Then you open up a new attack angle. Suddenly you're downloading a spreadsheet to your PDA that's not a spreadsheet, it's an Excel macro virus.
IMHO this article is really arrogant. It's still a well known fact that unplugging your computer is the only true security, connecting it via wireless is opening up the channel even wider.
Re:Linux is 10 *tomorrow* saturday
on
Linux Is 10 Today
·
· Score: 2
My opinion is Sept 17. The reason being that on Aug 25, 1991 Linux posted a message that he was WORKING ON a kernel. That's like a woman telling all her friends that she's pregnant. No birthday has occured, just the official announcement.
No matter which side of the debate you stand on, there's no one in their right mind that thinks linux is 10 today. Sheesh.
First thing I noticed when I access this site.. "site launched Aug 22, 9:00 AM MDT". It's currently 8:50 MDT, so technically this site isn't available for another 10 min.
Because there's no need for a CPU upgrade with each new kernel release. Even the latest 2.4 kernels run fine on my 486. There's no reason to upgrade my CPU to boot a new kernel. There is always a need to upgrade my entire system to load the latest Windoze. I still run Win95 on my Windoze box (yes, of course I have one, it's legacy support!) and the only reason I'd upgrade is if I REALLY wanted USB support, which I don't on the machine. The rest of the PC consumers are buying into the "I'm not 'experiencing' my PC enough so I'd better upgrade to Windoze XP" FUD. Then they need to buy all new hardware and they wonder if $700 more is really worth it to "experience" their computer the way MS says it should. AMD is just feeding off of Wintel. MS releases bloated code to make Intel happy, AMD releases faster, cheaper chips, and ends up being the winner. Nothing wrong with that. AMD is my friend.
Linux costs not only more because of the frequent updates which require new cdrom's to be bought if you don't have a high speed Internet connection.
If you want to you can purchase them on CD, but chances are you know someone who has a high speed connection. Even when I was a lad on my 14.4K modem (EWW!) I asked my ISP to burn CDs for me. No cost other then a dollar or two for the media and their time.
Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators
Ever set up AIX? IRIX? Solaris? Guess what, Joe average can't install *NIX on his own either. I contend that linux is the cheapest *NIX out there. First off, the OS is free (beer, speech, otherwise). Yes, you can pay money for a CD and manual, but it's SO much cheaper than buying IRIX, and there's no free download option there! There are LUGs across the world and I dare say there are far more admins booting up linux than any other *NIX so while yes, a good linux tech is spendy, they're a lot easier to find than an IRIX tech (and still much cheaper).
Most software on *NIX can be replaced by already written or partially written GPL code. The rest you might need to hire a C programmer for, but it's better than paying large amounts of $ for an off the shelf IRIX app.
How is linux unstable? Two of my boxen have NEVER crashed outside of a power outage. When I set up a linux server, it goes in the corner and doesn't get touched. Yes, X windows has added some instability with certain hardware but I think most of that is fixed now. Aside from one workstation with a broken X version, I have yet to see my workstations crash.
I don't have time to continue on about the other falsehoods in your post. I will say this though, YES, I agree that ext2 blows chunks. Reiser all the way. Other than that, I disagree with just about everything you said in this post.
Of all the broadband compaines out there, Charter is still the best. From my experience they all suck. Charter has problems, but my connection is constantly >128K/sec. Incoming port 80 never got blocked, and with the exception of their cable techs, their service seems good. I hope Charter is the last to go. Actually, I hope they don't go so I don't have to resort to dialup. Those $%#$^&$@'n bastards from the "other" cable company ran fiber to my house and I can't get DSL without spending a pile of $$ for a copper pair.
I think it'd be childish to throw beets at AIX. AIX had its day in the sun (and probably on one at some point) and it was a great OS. If linux is truly better it should humble itself and send AIX off with a retirement party, not just throw things at at. Especially beets, they stain clothing.
Yes, but the radio used in frequency was originally from the 50's, I don't know if vox was as common as then. Not to mention that they started off using the PTT button and then through the movie it got less and less use. By the end of the movie it was a "magical" vox button.
Slashdot Mirror
I totally disagree. It completely skirts the issue that got them into hot water: commingling. Now, it's possible that Wired didn't list all the punishments, there may be more that are in the works to deal with commingling. In all honesty, do you believe MS will adhere to these? It almost sounds like the justice dept is saying "well, we know it's going on, but now we're WATCHING you.. and if you mess up, we'll REALLY be watching you... and that's a promise!".
shhh... don't give them ideas! Actually, you do raise a very good point. What happens when other "rentable" software starts doing this? Like, for instance, what M$ has been trying to figure out with Office. The whole "planned obselecence" crap. This brings it to a whole new level, and it ain't gonna be pretty.
I'm no political analyst, but IIRC "Bush Administration" != "George W". And for those of you who are wondering, the BBC article names the Bush administration. There's no mention of it in CNN.
The ONLY use I could see for such a device is if you can add a network card and make a nice little X term. Otherwise it only scores point in the "oooohhh" category. Sure, it's fun to have a touch screen phone but unless it can play MP3s and DivX ;-) movies what's the point? And as someone else pointed out, there's no camera, so video conferencing is out of the question.
You're kidding, right? Computer Renassaince is the worst place to buy or sell stuff. They have nice low end PII systems that cost MORE than an E-machine with 17" monitor. They don't give you decent cash for hardware and they sell it for rediculous prices. My local CR has a nice area I call the "legacy scrap heap", a place where you can buy REALLY old hardware at the price it's worth. 486 CPUs for 99 cents, 30 pin SIMMS, etc. Otherwise if it's on the shelf you're paying too much. Used floppy drives: $30. 210 MB hard drive: $40. It's rediculous.
When I first started reading /., I wondered why whenever JonKatz posted the only things that got modded up were well-written flames against him and not the article.
Well, now I see why. Jon, your article is interesting but you're writing to the wrong crowd. I know how to use e-mail as a tool, the way it was intended. What you're talking about is more suited for the non-geek masses who don't. Take for example that teacher's e-mail issues. Her problem is not so much that students are turning to e-mail but that she's not understanding how to manage it. E-mail doesn't change anything in this instance. Before e-mail I'm sure she got phone calls telling her the same thing.
I personally see e-mail as more managable than phone calls. I can file things away and archive the important stuff for as long as I need it. Today's PIMs are an awesome tool. Think about this: a school district. The students are using Evolution to manage their calendar and e-mail. Imagine the power a teacher has, being able to post assignment dates and so forth on their calendars. No excuses, the PIM doesn't lie. Every student can pull up their assignments for the next few days, no excuses.
In short, e-mail is a tool. Learn to use it.
I have to ask... how much did you know about NT when you started? This is what bothers me about my current company. We can't even consider linux because I'm the only person who understands it enough to admin a box. We have no NT people on staff, yet the addition of Microsoft servers was a must. So for whatever reason, the company spent thousands of $$ to get us into all sorts of training classes and set up test networks so we could break the OS and try to fix it and stuff. Why? Because no one here understood the OS. When I mention we can do the same thing with linux but come out far cheaper because of the hardware and software cost savings they tell me "we don't want to go through THAT again". Go figure.
Yes, this story was written to sensationalize and dramatize the actual conversion. Getting past that, though, all the events mentioned are easily replicable. Replacing a 6 server NT cluster with a pentium class machine running linux? Yup. I believe it. NT likes dedicated machines (I suspect a licensing tactic there, another machine == more fees) yet linux can handle many services with incredibly little power. The server may have been a little taxed, handling 7,000 e-mail accounts on a single pentium box may stress it a little, but other than e-mail taking a little longer to send the end users won't notice. On NT the server would BSOD and e-mail would be down. Linux gets slow under pressure. NT crashes. Big difference in terms of $$ there.
I didn't switch to linux because someone told me too, I switched because I needed an alternative OS. This is a good sign of things to come. Build a better OS, and people will come. Of course, it helps that Microsoft enforces license policies that soak consumers for every penny they're worth and even corporation who WANT to be legal are unsure of their licensing. The more Microsoft starts bullying people around, the more enticing free software becomes. If Microsoft ever stoops to the level of leased OS's there will be a whole lot more stories like this one.
I just assumed that "Athlon 1600" meant 1.6 Ghz. I like AMD's idea of ditching clock speed since it's irrelevant. I don't agree with a model number that closely resembles a clock speed. There are morons who work at Best Buy and other computer chains that are going to tell consumers that the machine is 1.6 Ghz. Why? Because it just makes sense and they don't know any better than the consumer. Then Best Buy will get sued for false advertising when someone figures it out. I would personally like to see model numbers like "A0108" (Athlon released Aug 2001). Any guess that it represents a 1.4 Ghz chip? Not really.
but I (not being a lawyer) have to think that guy's statement to be blantantly wrong.
Yes, he is wrong. Most AUP's prohibit this, even though there's not much they can do. It's perfectly legal for me to plug in the Linksys router/switch/access point and share the connection with my laptop. So if my neighbor points his Linksys card at me and starts leeching bandwidth, am I violating it? Will my ISP try to stop me? By setting up a wireless access point you're giving everyone around you free bandwidth. Using AirSnort you can get the MAC addresses, reprogram your card and you have instant internet, free of charge. So, what it comes down to is that yes it's against your policy but what can anyone do about it?
I'm not going to get in a flame war with you but SENDMAIL IS BETTER.
does anyone have any info on getting an abacus to use wireless ethernet?
/dev/audio and you should be able to run a room's length wirelessly. Just don't tell /. about it, I'd hate to see your abacus get DDoS'd.
I can't find a good article on it, but you could use the sounds made from the abacus as a modem. Granted, it'd be a slower connection but it would be wireless to several feet. The sounds made by an abacus are more digital than analog so you could send an audible digital tone (a series of clicks) and use a speaker on the Betamax (long live beta!) to recieve the signal. Just set up PPP on
Qmail is stronger only because it doesn't run as root. Sendmail can do the same thing.
2.0GHz P4 == 1.4GHz K7
I know it's been posted already, but $560 == $107 according to Pricewatch this morning. Explain to me how you can even make an educated comparison on these chips. You're paying an extra $400 for the ability to tell your friends you're running at 2 Ghz, and to heat your home. IMHO Intel is shooting themselves in the foot with their ridiculous pricing. The 1.3 P4's are still more than a 1.4 T-bird, and the T-bird smokes the 1.3 P4 in every test. I have to wonder why anyone without Pointy Hair would consider purchasing one.
I do realize the complexity of hijacking a packet. Yes, my post was completely theoretical, but then again most attacks start with a good theory. I don't know the first thing about WAP but if it has any sort of error detection (such as filtering out weaker "ghost" signals) you may be able to RF shield the the trusted host and assume it's indentity with another. The wireless device will go for the stronger source and viola, you have a hijacking. The inital ideas I have on the subject could only be done in a lab, in the real world it'd be tougher to do (climbing towers while carrying 100 square feet of sheet metal and so forth). Anyway, this is all theory but hand it to an engineering student and it'll only be a matter of time when this happens.
in the very first paragraph. Anything that can be programmed can be programmed to do bad things. In my opinion, wireless opens up a new door. Since all devices must communicate over open air, they're easily sniffed. Just wait until someone figures out how to HIJACK a packet and trick the wireless device into thinking it's contacting a trusted host when in fact it's exchanging packets with a trojaned host. Then you open up a new attack angle. Suddenly you're downloading a spreadsheet to your PDA that's not a spreadsheet, it's an Excel macro virus.
IMHO this article is really arrogant. It's still a well known fact that unplugging your computer is the only true security, connecting it via wireless is opening up the channel even wider.
My opinion is Sept 17. The reason being that on Aug 25, 1991 Linux posted a message that he was WORKING ON a kernel. That's like a woman telling all her friends that she's pregnant. No birthday has occured, just the official announcement.
No matter which side of the debate you stand on, there's no one in their right mind that thinks linux is 10 today. Sheesh.
First thing I noticed when I access this site.. "site launched Aug 22, 9:00 AM MDT". It's currently 8:50 MDT, so technically this site isn't available for another 10 min.
Because there's no need for a CPU upgrade with each new kernel release. Even the latest 2.4 kernels run fine on my 486. There's no reason to upgrade my CPU to boot a new kernel. There is always a need to upgrade my entire system to load the latest Windoze. I still run Win95 on my Windoze box (yes, of course I have one, it's legacy support!) and the only reason I'd upgrade is if I REALLY wanted USB support, which I don't on the machine. The rest of the PC consumers are buying into the "I'm not 'experiencing' my PC enough so I'd better upgrade to Windoze XP" FUD. Then they need to buy all new hardware and they wonder if $700 more is really worth it to "experience" their computer the way MS says it should. AMD is just feeding off of Wintel. MS releases bloated code to make Intel happy, AMD releases faster, cheaper chips, and ends up being the winner. Nothing wrong with that. AMD is my friend.
Umm... what?
Linux costs not only more because of the frequent updates which require new cdrom's to be bought if you don't have a high speed Internet connection.
If you want to you can purchase them on CD, but chances are you know someone who has a high speed connection. Even when I was a lad on my 14.4K modem (EWW!) I asked my ISP to burn CDs for me. No cost other then a dollar or two for the media and their time.
Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators
Ever set up AIX? IRIX? Solaris? Guess what, Joe average can't install *NIX on his own either. I contend that linux is the cheapest *NIX out there. First off, the OS is free (beer, speech, otherwise). Yes, you can pay money for a CD and manual, but it's SO much cheaper than buying IRIX, and there's no free download option there! There are LUGs across the world and I dare say there are far more admins booting up linux than any other *NIX so while yes, a good linux tech is spendy, they're a lot easier to find than an IRIX tech (and still much cheaper).
Most software on *NIX can be replaced by already written or partially written GPL code. The rest you might need to hire a C programmer for, but it's better than paying large amounts of $ for an off the shelf IRIX app.
How is linux unstable? Two of my boxen have NEVER crashed outside of a power outage. When I set up a linux server, it goes in the corner and doesn't get touched. Yes, X windows has added some instability with certain hardware but I think most of that is fixed now. Aside from one workstation with a broken X version, I have yet to see my workstations crash.
I don't have time to continue on about the other falsehoods in your post. I will say this though, YES, I agree that ext2 blows chunks. Reiser all the way. Other than that, I disagree with just about everything you said in this post.
I think/hope Charter is next.
Of all the broadband compaines out there, Charter is still the best. From my experience they all suck. Charter has problems, but my connection is constantly >128K/sec. Incoming port 80 never got blocked, and with the exception of their cable techs, their service seems good. I hope Charter is the last to go. Actually, I hope they don't go so I don't have to resort to dialup. Those $%#$^&$@'n bastards from the "other" cable company ran fiber to my house and I can't get DSL without spending a pile of $$ for a copper pair.
Linux beats AIX?
I think it'd be childish to throw beets at AIX. AIX had its day in the sun (and probably on one at some point) and it was a great OS. If linux is truly better it should humble itself and send AIX off with a retirement party, not just throw things at at. Especially beets, they stain clothing.
Yes, but the radio used in frequency was originally from the 50's, I don't know if vox was as common as then. Not to mention that they started off using the PTT button and then through the movie it got less and less use. By the end of the movie it was a "magical" vox button.
that a beowulf cluster may have helped here?