Well, you can get a complete office suite [OOo] for free for the Dell, which isn't something you're going to want to do with the iMac.
And as for the iApps, I never did understand why web-browser, webcam, and image-viewer make such an exciting software suite? I've played with demo iMacs in the shop, and they seem rather bare in terms of installed software. Maybe I'm spoiled by having a choice of office-suites, choice of pro graphics applications etc., installed as part of all the operating-systems I've used recently, but it seems that you have to spend another $5000 in the Apple software store to get one of these machines fitted-out to the level of a default Mandrake installation.
"How does the Swiss Army defend itselves against Nazis, Commies, and Al Queda with those itty-bitty knives? Do they know something we don't?"
"Stay back or we burn your bank account"
(Being pedantic, swiss have a history of being extemely vicious fighters, and often mercenaries, during most of the european wars. See the Wikipedia for more, etc.)
"What would really be handy is if they started making Leathermans with USB drives."
The blades on the Leatherman seem to be so good that I expect mine to last for another 30 years or so. It would seem a bit odd to attach a USB drive which will be obsolete in three months, especially when flash drives are so small anyway that they're probably more convenient not hidden in things...
"Less exposure due to lack of viruses being written != more resistance."
Ignoring the apache/iis argument for a minute (Apache is really good software, but not all non-Microsoft software is so good), why haven't we seen 2-5% of viruses written for the Mac? People successfully write viruses for *Amigas* for goodness' sake, and where is their 95% market share?
When Oracle claimed that their system was unbreakable, it took less than a day for 3 different people to publish a score of exploits against it. Each new DRM system or web-application or console is cracked, just for the challenge of beating a security puzzle. Yet Apple-users have been claiming for years that they're invulnerable. That's not obscurity, that's red-rag-to-a-bull...
Apple's operating system seems to be shrugging-off all the attacks thrown at it, just as BSD itself is famous for doing...
"There has to be feedback to the soldier that his vote was cast and counted at the central polling place. There is a technology that can do this from the company "vote here" which allows the voter to call in later and check that their vote was recieved unchanged without actually telling them the vote (basically it tells them an encrypted checksum that cant be reversed to reveal the vote even by brute force). This does not prevent the client computer casting the ballot from making a mistake or being corrupted malicously or otherwise."
In theory.
In practise, you just get people to send their votes by text-message, and pray that nothing goes wrong and nobody tries to tamper with the process.
"After glancing over your post again in preview, I think you mean remap them to do something else, which I don't think is possible. It looks as if those buttons send the same signal as the mouse wheel, so there is no way to remap them."
I've just realised that was probably quite a confusing question, as in Windows I had been using the "side" (thumb) buttons to scroll up and down, since they seemed to be in quite a covenient place for that, rather than reaching all the way over the top of the mouse and to the buttons at the front (lifts your wrist off the table, further from the keyboard, etc.)
I did once have zaxismapping 6 7 which enabled those two buttons to scroll the document, but it only did it one step at a time, and if you held the buttons down it didn't scroll any further.
S'pose it's time to disappear into the bowels of XF86Config with only a shotgun and maglite for protection...
"The primary advantage of F/OSS compared with proprietary software is that it can be acquired without cost."
No, the primary advantage is that you can use it freely and without restictions. Cost is a side-benefit. While it's nice to argue pros and cons of getting an operating system for $30, the real benefit is that once you've found something you like, you can install it on all of your computers, update it whenever you like, and all this without ever having to worry about licensing restrictions.
As in, Proprietary: "This program looks neat, I'd better read some reviews to find out whether it's worth the money, then reccomend it to my boss, who can look in the budget and decide whether to instruct the purchasing department to get one copy for my computer. If I need to share files with my group, we'll need another 10 licenses"
Free: "This program looks neat, I'll download it and start using it to see whether it helps me. If I need to share files with my group, they can download the program from our intranet server"
"Neither. They would use 100 pirated copies of XP."
Or they could use the $10 copies of Windows98 which Microsoft sells to schools who've been given PCs [presumably ones with a valid Windows license already, since it was impossible to buy a computer without such a license]
--
How would you like software from a company who suggests you spend 4% of IT budget on keeping track of your licensing compliance?
"I find it pretty interesting that Sun was able to score this deal in an area where security is such an important aspect"
You mis-spelled "cost".
But here we don't have HIPPAA, and everyone in the NHS runs windows computers with viruses on them (not as much of an exaggeration as you think), it's common for whole departments to lose their computing facilities when a new virus hits, it's common for confidential information to make its way from a virus-infected computer to the internet. Many [most?] computers are never patched, and while they've got a firewall "around" the whole lot, everyone who's got laptops in their office (many doctors use tablet PCs) knows how effective one exterior firewall is.
They were once trying to roll-out an entire public-key cryptosystem in one go, which was the last time security was mentioned. I don't know if they were going to install a separate "prescription-signing" computer in each doctor's office, or install something on their Windows machine, but either way the talk is of extremely high cost, and extremely low value. Perhaps all the years of removing "non-medical" administrative positions are taking their toll, but more likely it's this way because everything related to UK government is that way.
Of course, people on slashdot will say that nothing should be connected to the internet, but then medical researchers are just the same as physics researchers -- websites and email addresses and newsgroups are very useful tools for doing research. And the surgeries in the shetland-end of nowhere with dial-up access to the mainland probably aren't going to have security of any sort, indeed I doubt that anyone has the funds to implement "military grade" 2-unconnected-networks security.
They just signed another contract for a quintillion windows licenses a year ago for both government and the NHS, if that gives any idea of their preferred platform
"Laser mouse that works on any surface and spawns lots of "frickin laser" jokes: Priceless."
Allows horizontal scrolling in which operating system? (I have a logitech MX500, and 5 of the buttons don't do anything useful in X)
I bought it in preference to the sideways-scrolling microsoft one, because for those of us who use the middle mouse-button all the time for opening tabs in mozilla, scrolling by accident when you're trying to click this button can be quite a time-waster (scrollwheel-up counts as 5th button, and is therefore eligable to drag windows, which will then follow the mouse untill you scroll-up again)
Anyone know how to map the smooth-scroll-up and smooth-scroll-down buttons on an MX-series without losing the scrollwheel?
"Y'all are missing something. The browser market is dominated by IE, and, if I remember correctly, IE doesn't even support non-animated PNG's perfectly."
IE doesn't yet support the ability to view web-pages without having your computer raped by russian teenagers. Given that rather fundamental limitation, it's hard to see why lack of PNG or MNG or APNG or anything else is even relevant to the users of that program
"IE won't support it until 2012, and even then, it'll only support half the features."
Yeah, but by then IE will have become so insecure that someone will have written a virus that deletes it and installs mozilla, just to protect their servers from the ten-billionth attempted MySQL exploit.
"Earth spins one way. Satellites can spin another way. Long wires will be able to put them really close to one another... Don't we have the makings for a really big generator?"
Earth spins, while a lump of rock infinitely bigger than any space-elevator orbits around it, conveniently dragging the entire mass of 7 earth-bound oceans behind it causing them to move in a regular, predictable manner, right next to large empty bits of land, and in the same country (not to mention the same planet) as the places where power will be used.
Yet if nobody has bothered to install any serious tidal-power generators yet "we'd rather burn coal", how much less likely is it that anybody will conjure up something complicated involving artificial satellites.
It's like all the "why don't we put nuclear power stations in space and beam the energy back" comments... we already have a nuclear reactor in space, it already is beaming energy back, and nobody except for the israelis and a few australians are bothering to collect it.
Slashdot Mirror
"I don't see any reason to use SPF either. It only benefits big ISPs, by keeping spammers from mentioning them in their return addresses."
So it's only big ISPs who get spammers using their name in the "from" field?
I guess that must mean every domain I own is a "big ISP".
"Mozilla includes everything and the kitchen sink. That's overkill for most users."
Including a great HTML editor, which I often use as a full word-processor... it seems a pity not to have this installable on its own like FireFox
(I know a separate composer is being worked-on, but at the moment, you have to download the whole Mozilla)
"You don't get the iApps with the Dell."
Well, you can get a complete office suite [OOo] for free for the Dell, which isn't something you're going to want to do with the iMac.
And as for the iApps, I never did understand why web-browser, webcam, and image-viewer make such an exciting software suite? I've played with demo iMacs in the shop, and they seem rather bare in terms of installed software. Maybe I'm spoiled by having a choice of office-suites, choice of pro graphics applications etc., installed as part of all the operating-systems I've used recently, but it seems that you have to spend another $5000 in the Apple software store to get one of these machines fitted-out to the level of a default Mandrake installation.
"How does the Swiss Army defend itselves against Nazis, Commies, and Al Queda with those itty-bitty knives? Do they know something we don't?"
"Stay back or we burn your bank account"
(Being pedantic, swiss have a history of being extemely vicious fighters, and often mercenaries, during most of the european wars. See the Wikipedia for more, etc.)
"What would really be handy is if they started making Leathermans with USB drives."
The blades on the Leatherman seem to be so good that I expect mine to last for another 30 years or so. It would seem a bit odd to attach a USB drive which will be obsolete in three months, especially when flash drives are so small anyway that they're probably more convenient not hidden in things...
"Less exposure due to lack of viruses being written != more resistance."
Ignoring the apache/iis argument for a minute (Apache is really good software, but not all non-Microsoft software is so good), why haven't we seen 2-5% of viruses written for the Mac? People successfully write viruses for *Amigas* for goodness' sake, and where is their 95% market share?
When Oracle claimed that their system was unbreakable, it took less than a day for 3 different people to publish a score of exploits against it. Each new DRM system or web-application or console is cracked, just for the challenge of beating a security puzzle. Yet Apple-users have been claiming for years that they're invulnerable. That's not obscurity, that's red-rag-to-a-bull...
Apple's operating system seems to be shrugging-off all the attacks thrown at it, just as BSD itself is famous for doing...
"If the author provides a "time limited" or "evaluation" version, but only provides source code upon purchase, then he's in a gray area."
There's nothing grey about it, if you're distributing binaries of GPL code. Either the source is supplied, or the distributor is breaking the law.
Anyone know what groupware (and unix programs in general) hope to do about the year-2038 problem?
"Wouldn't it be easy to spoof the email and cast fake votes?"
Isn't the sky sometimes blue?
"There has to be feedback to the soldier that his vote was cast and counted at the central polling place. There is a technology that can do this from the company "vote here" which allows the voter to call in later and check that their vote was recieved unchanged without actually telling them the vote (basically it tells them an encrypted checksum that cant be reversed to reveal the vote even by brute force). This does not prevent the client computer casting the ballot from making a mistake or being corrupted malicously or otherwise."
In theory.
In practise, you just get people to send their votes by text-message, and pray that nothing goes wrong and nobody tries to tamper with the process.
"Of course anybody putting purposefully obfuscated code into any real software should be shot.."
Or re-hired as a consultant when it needs fixing in a hurry...
"Can't they just use an email -> fax gateway of some sort?"
And why am I getting 5000 messages per day from trojaned windows machines saying "soldier #99383 votes for Eddie Marin as president"?
Just double-click on the attachment and type your PGP passphrase to view the screensaver.
"After glancing over your post again in preview, I think you mean remap them to do something else, which I don't think is possible. It looks as if those buttons send the same signal as the mouse wheel, so there is no way to remap them."
I've just realised that was probably quite a confusing question, as in Windows I had been using the "side" (thumb) buttons to scroll up and down, since they seemed to be in quite a covenient place for that, rather than reaching all the way over the top of the mouse and to the buttons at the front (lifts your wrist off the table, further from the keyboard, etc.)
I did once have zaxismapping 6 7 which enabled those two buttons to scroll the document, but it only did it one step at a time, and if you held the buttons down it didn't scroll any further.
S'pose it's time to disappear into the bowels of XF86Config with only a shotgun and maglite for protection...
"The primary advantage of F/OSS compared with proprietary software is that it can be acquired without cost."
No, the primary advantage is that you can use it freely and without restictions. Cost is a side-benefit. While it's nice to argue pros and cons of getting an operating system for $30, the real benefit is that once you've found something you like, you can install it on all of your computers, update it whenever you like, and all this without ever having to worry about licensing restrictions.
As in,
Proprietary: "This program looks neat, I'd better read some reviews to find out whether it's worth the money, then reccomend it to my boss, who can look in the budget and decide whether to instruct the purchasing department to get one copy for my computer. If I need to share files with my group, we'll need another 10 licenses"
Free: "This program looks neat, I'll download it and start using it to see whether it helps me. If I need to share files with my group, they can download the program from our intranet server"
"Neither. They would use 100 pirated copies of XP."
Or they could use the $10 copies of Windows98 which Microsoft sells to schools who've been given PCs [presumably ones with a valid Windows license already, since it was impossible to buy a computer without such a license]
--
How would you like software from a company who suggests you spend 4% of IT budget on keeping track of your licensing compliance?
"I find it pretty interesting that Sun was able to score this deal in an area where security is such an important aspect"
You mis-spelled "cost".
But here we don't have HIPPAA, and everyone in the NHS runs windows computers with viruses on them (not as much of an exaggeration as you think), it's common for whole departments to lose their computing facilities when a new virus hits, it's common for confidential information to make its way from a virus-infected computer to the internet. Many [most?] computers are never patched, and while they've got a firewall "around" the whole lot, everyone who's got laptops in their office (many doctors use tablet PCs) knows how effective one exterior firewall is.
They were once trying to roll-out an entire public-key cryptosystem in one go, which was the last time security was mentioned. I don't know if they were going to install a separate "prescription-signing" computer in each doctor's office, or install something on their Windows machine, but either way the talk is of extremely high cost, and extremely low value. Perhaps all the years of removing "non-medical" administrative positions are taking their toll, but more likely it's this way because everything related to UK government is that way.
Of course, people on slashdot will say that nothing should be connected to the internet, but then medical researchers are just the same as physics researchers -- websites and email addresses and newsgroups are very useful tools for doing research. And the surgeries in the shetland-end of nowhere with dial-up access to the mainland probably aren't going to have security of any sort, indeed I doubt that anyone has the funds to implement "military grade" 2-unconnected-networks security.
They just signed another contract for a quintillion windows licenses a year ago for both government and the NHS, if that gives any idea of their preferred platform
"Laser mouse that works on any surface and spawns lots of "frickin laser" jokes: Priceless."
Allows horizontal scrolling in which operating system? (I have a logitech MX500, and 5 of the buttons don't do anything useful in X)
I bought it in preference to the sideways-scrolling microsoft one, because for those of us who use the middle mouse-button all the time for opening tabs in mozilla, scrolling by accident when you're trying to click this button can be quite a time-waster (scrollwheel-up counts as 5th button, and is therefore eligable to drag windows, which will then follow the mouse untill you scroll-up again)
Anyone know how to map the smooth-scroll-up and smooth-scroll-down buttons on an MX-series without losing the scrollwheel?
"the iPod's meteoric rise"
which direction would that be?
"What we need is a persuasive liberation militia."
A regime-change! We could civilise the game-playing companies, and bring democracy to their offices! Bring out the bombs!
"I don't care if you're campaigning for the girlscouts, painting on public property is illegal."
/* then your comment would be valid */ }
if(paint == chalk){
"Y'all are missing something. The browser market is dominated by IE, and, if I remember correctly, IE doesn't even support non-animated PNG's perfectly."
IE doesn't yet support the ability to view web-pages without having your computer raped by russian teenagers. Given that rather fundamental limitation, it's hard to see why lack of PNG or MNG or APNG or anything else is even relevant to the users of that program
"Yeah, and a damn good thing too, otherwise we'd have a browser that's so huge and bloated that..."
That it's expanded to the point where it can send and receive mail?
"IE won't support it until 2012, and even then, it'll only support half the features."
Yeah, but by then IE will have become so insecure that someone will have written a virus that deletes it and installs mozilla, just to protect their servers from the ten-billionth attempted MySQL exploit.
"I keep seeing iPod competitors coming out with video playback devices and I have to wonder... WHY?"
18.6 Gibibibibibyes of porn isn't so useful when you need an iMac and firewire cable to view it...
(presumably these devices do do slideshows and not just play videos...?)
You could even use it as a digital picture-frame when it's being stored in your room
"Earth spins one way. Satellites can spin another way. Long wires will be able to put them really close to one another... Don't we have the makings for a really big generator?"
Earth spins, while a lump of rock infinitely bigger than any space-elevator orbits around it, conveniently dragging the entire mass of 7 earth-bound oceans behind it causing them to move in a regular, predictable manner, right next to large empty bits of land, and in the same country (not to mention the same planet) as the places where power will be used.
Yet if nobody has bothered to install any serious tidal-power generators yet "we'd rather burn coal", how much less likely is it that anybody will conjure up something complicated involving artificial satellites.
It's like all the "why don't we put nuclear power stations in space and beam the energy back" comments... we already have a nuclear reactor in space, it already is beaming energy back, and nobody except for the israelis and a few australians are bothering to collect it.