I agree. The big selling point with Windows really is that I know it will work with anything I buy at the store and with any web site I go to. I wonder if the growing need for OS and client software diversity will finally make hardware manufacturers start to do real multiple OS support and web site designers to finally code to be non-client dependent. It sure would be a big boon for diversity and choice. In the chicken and egg game of driver support versus demand I think that if we can get the demand up then we'll see the driver support from hardware manufacturers. I think Dell was a good example of that. With the constant security flaws in Windows and now the big leap in retraining for their new Office (plus the fact that you need a plug-in for the old office to read the new office files) there may just be enough strain in the marketplace to get people to look at OpenOffice on Windows. Once you replace the killer app you really open the door to your flavor of linux distro on the PC. Although I concede there still isn't in my mind a replacement for Outlook connected to an Exchange server I have a feeling that the trend to linux may start faster in the home PC market by people who are heavily supported by geeks to keep their machines running as opposed to filtering from business to personal.
That's a good point and I agree totally that pre-installed PC's are a big step in the right direction for wider adoption. That's actually why I refer folks to the Dell Ubuntu sales page now. I guess the trick is that there are several major things that "Joe and Jane" need and want in a personal PC and they don't actually know what those things are but as we can pinpoint those things and make sure a linux distro has those things we will see wider adoption. I have to admit that I'm looking forward to it if for no other reason than some real diversity in computers. Even if (when) viruses and worms start being made to hit harder at linux we'll at least have a heterogeneous computing environment that will reduce how hard any one attack hits the Net.
Yes, I have been watching that relatively closely. I'm looking forward to when it actually gets released so I can give it a shot. I think Ubuntu with the CNR plugin for proprietary codecs will be the removal of probably one of the largest remaining barriers to "Joe User" adoption of linux as a safe, solid, PC on the Internet. I realize of course that "Joe" will need to be told about it by one of "us" but I have already started recommending Dell Ubuntu systems for some of my clients depending on their needs (home users). I didn't mention CNR in my post partly because I've been waiting for it so long I'd forgotten (whoops) and the other part of my excuse will be that it hasn't been actually released yet. But thanks for the reminder. I need to keep a closer watch on that now that we are nearing release time.
Sadly, it's not a troll. I use Ubuntu 7.04 at work and home exclusively and I can play most Windows Media files. However, the Windows DRM embedded in the audio books you can download from my public library can not be turned into anything useful to listen to on linux (as far as I have been able to figure out, anyway). If I want to play them on my MP3 player I have to download them to my wife's Windows box to activate the DRM license and then I can get it on the MP3 player. If I try to download it to my linux box and play it or transfer it to the MP3 player to play it I get nothing. I haven't tried copying the activated file from the Windows box to my linux box to see if it will play or not because if I have to download it to a Windows box first, then to an MP3 player, then to my linux box, it just isn't worth it to me.
Personally, I would love to see the option for a DRM-enabled audio/video player on linux for those of us who want access to available DRM'ed files. I don't even care if it has to be a binary blob (since it's only going to run in user space anyway) and I don't care to bypass any of the functionality of the DRM. I just want the choice to use a more stable and secure OS when I listen to my audio book from the library.
I have no intention to bash you because I understand what you are saying. However, I would like to point out a couple things about the scenario you put forward. First, I noticed that you are running a P3-450. Now, I know many people will say you can run Linux on older hardware, and that's technically true. But if you are going to run the latest version of Ubuntu, for example, I've found that a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB RAM or better is the real world minimum for a reasonable bootup time and performance. However, I will also point out that once you meet that minimum I think you'll find your linux desktop performs comparably to your XP desktop.
I'm not sure why you had to resort to command line anything for your linux desktop. My presumption would be a piece of hardware that was unusual or not supported by the standard install of the OS. I rarely hear of that or encounter that with releases in the last year and would suggest you might want to try again. There's been giant leaps in hardware support. Of course, purchasing a PC from Dell with Ubuntu guarantees no problems such as you described.
So, I would have to say your comments sound a bit dated, it would be interesting to know how long ago you tried to install Ubuntu on the machine you mentioned. Also, you may want to choose XFCE for the desktop environment. It's designed to help speed things up on older PC's. But for a typical grandma on a current-ish PC I would argue that a standard Ubuntu install requires much less trouble or messing with to get working and keep working. Grandma and you don't have to know anything about linux because odds are if she doesn't know how to do it in Linux, she didn't know how to do it in Windows either. The only real setup issue that will continue to remain is having to add support for WMA files and other proprietary codecs. I'll concede that annoyance, but, it seems a small nuisance that you have to do once vs the many annoyances of maintaining a Windows PC connected to the Internet.
Just my $0.02. Take it for what little it's worth.
The common criminal doesn't need to figure out how to reformat the device. He just has to find someone willing to buy it a discount because it's "not usable". That person then looks up the info, reformats it and uses it or sells it on E-bay. The GP is correct. If you have physical access to the device there will always be a way to reset it. Of course, that may reduce it's "street" value and therefore cause folks not to specifically target the device. In the end, whatever a thief can get for it is worth it and no amount of disabling a device is going to stop it from being stolen.
I'm not a programmer but I did come across this site. I think it has the answers you are looking for. I haven't programed since C++ was brand new and have been trying to choose a versatile language to learn so I can get back into programming again and I came across this. It appears to be a way to allow Linux machines to have access to the.net framework and allow you to compile and run.net apps on a linux box. Hope this fits your needs.
It finally kicked the bucket about 3 or 4 years later (first HD failure, then on-board NIC). Of course, it came with Linspire and I tried it for a bit and wasn't much for it so I installed various other flavors over the years but for $200 I used it as a desktop, then as a "server" and all the parts were fine. I was very happy with it but I think they did it a little too early. There were too many things I couldn't do with it back then that I coudl do much more easily now. But now, I buy Compaqs or Dells for cheap and install Linux on them. It would be nice to get inexpensive pre-built Linux solutions again.
"The exploit is a single line of JavaScript loaded with a default router IP address, a default password, and an HTTP query designed to reconfigure the router to use the attacker's DNS servers.
The attacker would have to persuade the user to visit the web page containing the attack code. This could be done with spammed links, or by inserting it into a page on a compromised web server on a popular site."
The problem is that this attack is launched from a web site, not a drive-by wireless connection. Therefore, it will affect non-wireless routers and wireless routers if you happen to be hard-connected to it instead of using the wireless connection. Makes it a much more dangerous problem with the number of default installations for routers out there. One could also make an assumption that folks who are more likely to be tricked into a bad site in the first place probably don't have the technical know-how to change the default password and IP settings of their router.
Just in case he doesn't get back to your question. I did the exact same thing he did (except for trying to install on another machine) and there is a rollback option that appears briefly just after the CD is checked for a bootable disk. If you're quick you can arrow down and the menu will stay visible. You can rollback to your previous Windows at that point. It does it quite successfully.
... and I guess I still qualify as a noob. I really should have known better than to try it. But I'm curious by nature. I'm just glad I didn't have any work open at the time. So, enjoy the chuckles. Out of curiosity, what exactly DID happen? The best I can figure out is I was logged out immediately and sent to a terminal console. I did it again and it let me log back in with the graphical interface but I'm not exactly sure what this "feature" is supposed to be for. Can anyone clear that up for me?
Although I rarely agree with anything the ACLU has to say, this site http://www.realnightmare.org/about/1/, lists 7 reasonable reasons. I also personally appreciated the disctrimination issues referred to here (being a legal permanent resident). There are some practical reasons to not try to jerry-rig 50+ state systems into 1 gigantic foobar DB. If the federal government is going to create a national ID that clearly identifies every person in the borders of the country and clearly states what "class" of person you are in this country the least they could do is do it at the Federal level and make it separate from Driver's licenses which are still controlled by the individual states.
Here is a link to the article I found. Here's a quick quote:
"In 2000, just 5 percent of 13- to 17-year olds had cell phones. Today, 56 percent do, according to Linda Barrabee, wireless market analyst for The Yankee Group."
That was taken in 2004. You can just imagine the stats now. I think our 12 year old fits in the demographics by now. The sad truth is that parents have been tricked into believing that a child having a cell phone is a replacement for putting effort into actually physically knowing where your children are. I expect we'll see younger and younger children with them. You can already get children's phones that only dial pre-programmed numbers aimed at the under 10 age group. As a whole we keep treating children like adults without taking the time to teach them how to be children and then adults first. It's quite unfortunate.
Thanks for providing the link to the talkback. I didn't even know that part existed. After reading the entry I saw that the only problem with my entry was that it should have linked to the Slashdot article that included the phrase "patent troll" in the submission. I've resubmitted with that change and expect it to stay up. Quite a learning experience but it was about time I started learning about Wikipedia since so many people are starting to use it. Like many new technologies, I have to learn it, but I don't have to like it.:P
I think most Republicans just shrug this off when Democrats do it. I've been getting something similar to this from the Democratic party for a couple weeks. At first I thought it was a message from a Republican candidate (that I know fairly well) but it quickly turned into a malicious slamming with outright lies (I knew they were because I was involved with some of the things mentioned). I shrugged and hung up. I don't care. Truth of the matter is that both sides do really stupid things during campaigns and I'm not real proud of anyone during campaign time. But it seems to me that Democrats tend to yell louder and cry foul more but Republicans seem to quietly shrug their shoulders and let their vote speak for them. I think that's why it seem that Republicans do this underhanded stuff more. But from where I"m standing, both sides do it about equally.
As a side note, I'm a Canadian so I can't vote but I've lived in the U.S. for 7 years and am somewhat active in local politics and government because I live here and have a stake in things too. I can't vote, but I can tell my voting friends what I think on topics and individual politicians and let them decide for themselves.
If you have something that works feel free to share. I don't run a big server for tonnes of folks but I know I struggle with trying to keep the inbox clean. My wife gets about 20 per day and I get about the same. The difference being I use Thunderbird and it does a good job of figuring out junk mail at the client level and removing it for me. She, unfortuantely uses Outlook and it doesn't do so well. I would love a server level solution to implement and am even willing to add to/change my platform if need be. So, speak up. What's your solution?
I don't know all the file types this does and doesn't work for but I know that if the execute bit is turned on for an open office document I get the following message:
"Do you want to run "Daily notes and messages.doc", or display its contents?" - "Daily notes and messages.doc" is an executable text file.
Quite handy. I just click on "Display" instead of "Run" and it's all good. Even with PEBKAC the user wants their pr0n "displayed" and they might hit the right button. If the execute bit is off then it just opens in OOo. This doesn't work for all files (I tried with a gif and it opened without prompting about executing) so I don't know how much protection this affords but it's in the right direction at least.
I would be elated if I could reproduce your results. Perhaps you can help me. I'm running Mac OS 10.4.7 and already have the settings you mentioned set. In the Universal access settings "Zoom follows keyboard focus" is checked and "continuously with pointer" is checked. Mouse keys are turned off. If you turn on magnification (Function + Apple + 8) and then pump up the magnification (Function + Apple + =) so you only see a small portion of the screen at a time then try typing in a document it does not follow where you type. Or at least not on my Mac. I've tried in a few applications including Appleworks 6.2.4 and Mail 2.1, and others. In all cases as I type the text goes off the screen to the right instead of the viewing window following my typing cursor. This causes me to have to move the mouse to see what I'm typing.
However, I admit I'm not extremely well-versed with Macs and don't know what a Quartz-compliant application is. If you cold list a Quartz-compliant word processor, e-mail, and web browser program that I could test I"ll see if I can get it in my lab. Despite your rude reply I do appreciate the detail you provided on which settings you use to get this to work. If I can reproduce your claim then I have several clients who will be very grateful.
Actually, I run Ubuntu at home and work so I'm familiar with both KDE and Gnome environments. You're right though, for Linux the issue more in the desktop API. In Windows the issue is in the general API. So, no, I didn't separate the layers and used a generic term. Unfortunately, font enlargement is not a practical solution. For example, if a visually impaired user needs 50pt font text in order to read the text, there is not enough space on the screen to fit much if anything properly and most applications will not display correctly if you try to do that to their menu items and icons. So, large print software takes a portion of the screen (let's say the top left quadrant as one example) and magnifies every pixel in that region and redisplays it as the only image on the screen. This means you don't see the whole screen at a time but as you move your mouse to the edges of the screen it moves the display so you can look around the "real screen". You get a similar effect if you try using a hand magnifier (at high levels of magnification) to read text on a page. You can only read what you see through the magnifier and that may only be a few letters at a time. Thankfully, you can usually get several words at a time using computer magnification.
As a side note, Linux accessibility in general has improved a good deal in the past few years but is still not in a place where I am comfortable recommending it for any of my clients. However, the reason I use Ubuntu in an all Windows agency is to test accessibility out and watch for when it reaches a reasonable stage as a low cost solution for the blind and low vision population who can benefit from low cost computer equipment. Usable large print software starts at $400 and screen readers start at $800. These tend to both need upgrading frequently and upgrades cost hundreds per year.
Hope this clarifies a bit. If you have any more questions feel free to contact me directly.
Since I saw the same question posted in amny places let me go ahead and explain it once in one place. FYI I have been teaching the blind and people with multiple disabilities how to use computers for competitive employment for nearly 10 years.
There is no operating system that actually has speech and large print capabilities built into the core. Accessibility has always been a "bolt on" solution. In many cases, large print software and screen reading software has altered and even mangled video drivers in order to try to figure out what was being put on the screen to work with it. However, in the last few years there has been a move to incorporate the ability for third party software such as screen readers and large print software to be able to access the data in otehr apps more easily so that the text can be read by the screen readers. Unfortunately, it is still possible (and common) to run into applications that use odd ways of writing to the video cards that the large print software is unable to intercept. Therefore you will get issues such as in Microsoft Word where if you insert Word Art it is invisible when you are using large print software but visible when you disable the software.
And of course, we all hate Microsoft for being a monopoly so the adaptive technology industry is rather happy (I'm sure) that MS doesn't incorporate a useful large print and screen reader software built into the OS. Now, there is large print and speech applications built into Windows. However, they are no better than many two-bit freeware packages and are not practical for long term use if you're going to be as efficient as a sighted person at work.
Mac OS has large print and speech applications as well. However, the large print software doesn't track the typing cursor. They have had this flaw for years and seem too lazy to fix it. This makes the software nearly useless for word processing. Their screen reader leaves plenty of room for improvement as well. Unfortunately, since the move to Mac OS X there are no longer 3rd party vendors for large print and speech for the Mac (there used to be).
Hopefully that clears a few things up. Now, as for Open Office, I have been using it for a low vision user who need minimal magnification with large print software and it seems to be OK although there are some odd random artifacts that clear up. Not a great solution but it will do for that particular situation. However, screen readers and Open Office are still not where they need to be. In OO.o's dfense, they are aware of this and, I believe, working on it. Here's hoping we'll see some movement soon.
Michael Wigle
Computer Access Specialist
Cincinnati Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Actually, even Kurzweil's desktop version can't do usable COR on advanced math. Advanced math still needs to be manually transcribed by a Braille Transcriptionist into a form of Braille called Nemeth code. Then it can be read and used by a blind student who knows the advanced math code. I'm not sure why there is no demand in New Zealand for advanced math and other science textbooks in Braille other than perhaps not enough blind studetns there are interested but in the U.S., strategies for getting advanced math formulas into Braille from the textbook is in the forefront of discussion in schools because so many blind students need to take those courses.
Michael Wigle
Cincinnati Association for the Blind
I realize this was a troll but I can't resist because there some people who actually think they feel that way until they start to think. Natural selection, eh? OK, run naked into the woods with no tools, no supplies, and live off the land for one year. You're not allowed to make primitive tools because this is natural selection, right? Survival of the fittest? Oh wait, you mean you were given a brain to use? Imagine that, so just perhaps, our ability to think, work in groups (tribal hunting), and have a variety of skills and strengths and being able to make use of them *IS* letting natural selection take it's place. Believe it or not, there are blind people who have contributed to society.
As a side note, since you are probably between 18 and 35 (notice I'm trying to give you the benefit fo the doubt) I can guarantee that if you haven't died in 50 years (which is quite likely) you will be going blind if not already legally blind. Are you going to kill yourself? Sit in your home and never go out letting someone else treat you like an incompetent child? Or are you going to take some Mobility lessons, fork out a few grand and move about with independence and read your own restaurant menus and street signs and food labels.
When you're young and healthy it's easy to be cocky. But I assure you, nobody gets out of here alive and those who live the longest all lose their vision. Do you wanna live forever, punk?
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I agree. The big selling point with Windows really is that I know it will work with anything I buy at the store and with any web site I go to. I wonder if the growing need for OS and client software diversity will finally make hardware manufacturers start to do real multiple OS support and web site designers to finally code to be non-client dependent. It sure would be a big boon for diversity and choice. In the chicken and egg game of driver support versus demand I think that if we can get the demand up then we'll see the driver support from hardware manufacturers. I think Dell was a good example of that. With the constant security flaws in Windows and now the big leap in retraining for their new Office (plus the fact that you need a plug-in for the old office to read the new office files) there may just be enough strain in the marketplace to get people to look at OpenOffice on Windows. Once you replace the killer app you really open the door to your flavor of linux distro on the PC. Although I concede there still isn't in my mind a replacement for Outlook connected to an Exchange server I have a feeling that the trend to linux may start faster in the home PC market by people who are heavily supported by geeks to keep their machines running as opposed to filtering from business to personal.
That's a good point and I agree totally that pre-installed PC's are a big step in the right direction for wider adoption. That's actually why I refer folks to the Dell Ubuntu sales page now. I guess the trick is that there are several major things that "Joe and Jane" need and want in a personal PC and they don't actually know what those things are but as we can pinpoint those things and make sure a linux distro has those things we will see wider adoption. I have to admit that I'm looking forward to it if for no other reason than some real diversity in computers. Even if (when) viruses and worms start being made to hit harder at linux we'll at least have a heterogeneous computing environment that will reduce how hard any one attack hits the Net.
Yes, I have been watching that relatively closely. I'm looking forward to when it actually gets released so I can give it a shot. I think Ubuntu with the CNR plugin for proprietary codecs will be the removal of probably one of the largest remaining barriers to "Joe User" adoption of linux as a safe, solid, PC on the Internet. I realize of course that "Joe" will need to be told about it by one of "us" but I have already started recommending Dell Ubuntu systems for some of my clients depending on their needs (home users). I didn't mention CNR in my post partly because I've been waiting for it so long I'd forgotten (whoops) and the other part of my excuse will be that it hasn't been actually released yet. But thanks for the reminder. I need to keep a closer watch on that now that we are nearing release time.
Sadly, it's not a troll. I use Ubuntu 7.04 at work and home exclusively and I can play most Windows Media files. However, the Windows DRM embedded in the audio books you can download from my public library can not be turned into anything useful to listen to on linux (as far as I have been able to figure out, anyway). If I want to play them on my MP3 player I have to download them to my wife's Windows box to activate the DRM license and then I can get it on the MP3 player. If I try to download it to my linux box and play it or transfer it to the MP3 player to play it I get nothing. I haven't tried copying the activated file from the Windows box to my linux box to see if it will play or not because if I have to download it to a Windows box first, then to an MP3 player, then to my linux box, it just isn't worth it to me.
Personally, I would love to see the option for a DRM-enabled audio/video player on linux for those of us who want access to available DRM'ed files. I don't even care if it has to be a binary blob (since it's only going to run in user space anyway) and I don't care to bypass any of the functionality of the DRM. I just want the choice to use a more stable and secure OS when I listen to my audio book from the library.
I have no intention to bash you because I understand what you are saying. However, I would like to point out a couple things about the scenario you put forward. First, I noticed that you are running a P3-450. Now, I know many people will say you can run Linux on older hardware, and that's technically true. But if you are going to run the latest version of Ubuntu, for example, I've found that a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB RAM or better is the real world minimum for a reasonable bootup time and performance. However, I will also point out that once you meet that minimum I think you'll find your linux desktop performs comparably to your XP desktop.
I'm not sure why you had to resort to command line anything for your linux desktop. My presumption would be a piece of hardware that was unusual or not supported by the standard install of the OS. I rarely hear of that or encounter that with releases in the last year and would suggest you might want to try again. There's been giant leaps in hardware support. Of course, purchasing a PC from Dell with Ubuntu guarantees no problems such as you described.
So, I would have to say your comments sound a bit dated, it would be interesting to know how long ago you tried to install Ubuntu on the machine you mentioned. Also, you may want to choose XFCE for the desktop environment. It's designed to help speed things up on older PC's. But for a typical grandma on a current-ish PC I would argue that a standard Ubuntu install requires much less trouble or messing with to get working and keep working. Grandma and you don't have to know anything about linux because odds are if she doesn't know how to do it in Linux, she didn't know how to do it in Windows either. The only real setup issue that will continue to remain is having to add support for WMA files and other proprietary codecs. I'll concede that annoyance, but, it seems a small nuisance that you have to do once vs the many annoyances of maintaining a Windows PC connected to the Internet.
Just my $0.02. Take it for what little it's worth.
The common criminal doesn't need to figure out how to reformat the device. He just has to find someone willing to buy it a discount because it's "not usable". That person then looks up the info, reformats it and uses it or sells it on E-bay. The GP is correct. If you have physical access to the device there will always be a way to reset it. Of course, that may reduce it's "street" value and therefore cause folks not to specifically target the device. In the end, whatever a thief can get for it is worth it and no amount of disabling a device is going to stop it from being stolen.
I'm not a programmer but I did come across this site. I think it has the answers you are looking for. I haven't programed since C++ was brand new and have been trying to choose a versatile language to learn so I can get back into programming again and I came across this. It appears to be a way to allow Linux machines to have access to the .net framework and allow you to compile and run .net apps on a linux box. Hope this fits your needs.
It finally kicked the bucket about 3 or 4 years later (first HD failure, then on-board NIC). Of course, it came with Linspire and I tried it for a bit and wasn't much for it so I installed various other flavors over the years but for $200 I used it as a desktop, then as a "server" and all the parts were fine. I was very happy with it but I think they did it a little too early. There were too many things I couldn't do with it back then that I coudl do much more easily now. But now, I buy Compaqs or Dells for cheap and install Linux on them. It would be nice to get inexpensive pre-built Linux solutions again.
"The exploit is a single line of JavaScript loaded with a default router IP address, a default password, and an HTTP query designed to reconfigure the router to use the attacker's DNS servers.
The attacker would have to persuade the user to visit the web page containing the attack code. This could be done with spammed links, or by inserting it into a page on a compromised web server on a popular site."
The problem is that this attack is launched from a web site, not a drive-by wireless connection. Therefore, it will affect non-wireless routers and wireless routers if you happen to be hard-connected to it instead of using the wireless connection. Makes it a much more dangerous problem with the number of default installations for routers out there. One could also make an assumption that folks who are more likely to be tricked into a bad site in the first place probably don't have the technical know-how to change the default password and IP settings of their router.
Just in case he doesn't get back to your question. I did the exact same thing he did (except for trying to install on another machine) and there is a rollback option that appears briefly just after the CD is checked for a bootable disk. If you're quick you can arrow down and the menu will stay visible. You can rollback to your previous Windows at that point. It does it quite successfully.
... and I guess I still qualify as a noob. I really should have known better than to try it. But I'm curious by nature. I'm just glad I didn't have any work open at the time. So, enjoy the chuckles. Out of curiosity, what exactly DID happen? The best I can figure out is I was logged out immediately and sent to a terminal console. I did it again and it let me log back in with the graphical interface but I'm not exactly sure what this "feature" is supposed to be for. Can anyone clear that up for me?
Although I rarely agree with anything the ACLU has to say, this site http://www.realnightmare.org/about/1/, lists 7 reasonable reasons. I also personally appreciated the disctrimination issues referred to here (being a legal permanent resident). There are some practical reasons to not try to jerry-rig 50+ state systems into 1 gigantic foobar DB. If the federal government is going to create a national ID that clearly identifies every person in the borders of the country and clearly states what "class" of person you are in this country the least they could do is do it at the Federal level and make it separate from Driver's licenses which are still controlled by the individual states.
Here is a link to the article I found. Here's a quick quote:
"In 2000, just 5 percent of 13- to 17-year olds had cell phones. Today, 56 percent do, according to Linda Barrabee, wireless market analyst for The Yankee Group."
That was taken in 2004. You can just imagine the stats now. I think our 12 year old fits in the demographics by now. The sad truth is that parents have been tricked into believing that a child having a cell phone is a replacement for putting effort into actually physically knowing where your children are. I expect we'll see younger and younger children with them. You can already get children's phones that only dial pre-programmed numbers aimed at the under 10 age group. As a whole we keep treating children like adults without taking the time to teach them how to be children and then adults first. It's quite unfortunate.
Thanks for providing the link to the talkback. I didn't even know that part existed. After reading the entry I saw that the only problem with my entry was that it should have linked to the Slashdot article that included the phrase "patent troll" in the submission. I've resubmitted with that change and expect it to stay up. Quite a learning experience but it was about time I started learning about Wikipedia since so many people are starting to use it. Like many new technologies, I have to learn it, but I don't have to like it. :P
Done and done. (And my first attempt at a wikipedia edit)
I think most Republicans just shrug this off when Democrats do it. I've been getting something similar to this from the Democratic party for a couple weeks. At first I thought it was a message from a Republican candidate (that I know fairly well) but it quickly turned into a malicious slamming with outright lies (I knew they were because I was involved with some of the things mentioned). I shrugged and hung up. I don't care. Truth of the matter is that both sides do really stupid things during campaigns and I'm not real proud of anyone during campaign time. But it seems to me that Democrats tend to yell louder and cry foul more but Republicans seem to quietly shrug their shoulders and let their vote speak for them. I think that's why it seem that Republicans do this underhanded stuff more. But from where I"m standing, both sides do it about equally.
As a side note, I'm a Canadian so I can't vote but I've lived in the U.S. for 7 years and am somewhat active in local politics and government because I live here and have a stake in things too. I can't vote, but I can tell my voting friends what I think on topics and individual politicians and let them decide for themselves.
If you have something that works feel free to share. I don't run a big server for tonnes of folks but I know I struggle with trying to keep the inbox clean. My wife gets about 20 per day and I get about the same. The difference being I use Thunderbird and it does a good job of figuring out junk mail at the client level and removing it for me. She, unfortuantely uses Outlook and it doesn't do so well. I would love a server level solution to implement and am even willing to add to/change my platform if need be. So, speak up. What's your solution?
I don't know all the file types this does and doesn't work for but I know that if the execute bit is turned on for an open office document I get the following message:
"Do you want to run "Daily notes and messages.doc", or display its contents?" - "Daily notes and messages.doc" is an executable text file.
Quite handy. I just click on "Display" instead of "Run" and it's all good. Even with PEBKAC the user wants their pr0n "displayed" and they might hit the right button. If the execute bit is off then it just opens in OOo. This doesn't work for all files (I tried with a gif and it opened without prompting about executing) so I don't know how much protection this affords but it's in the right direction at least.
I would be elated if I could reproduce your results. Perhaps you can help me. I'm running Mac OS 10.4.7 and already have the settings you mentioned set. In the Universal access settings "Zoom follows keyboard focus" is checked and "continuously with pointer" is checked. Mouse keys are turned off. If you turn on magnification (Function + Apple + 8) and then pump up the magnification (Function + Apple + =) so you only see a small portion of the screen at a time then try typing in a document it does not follow where you type. Or at least not on my Mac. I've tried in a few applications including Appleworks 6.2.4 and Mail 2.1, and others. In all cases as I type the text goes off the screen to the right instead of the viewing window following my typing cursor. This causes me to have to move the mouse to see what I'm typing.
However, I admit I'm not extremely well-versed with Macs and don't know what a Quartz-compliant application is. If you cold list a Quartz-compliant word processor, e-mail, and web browser program that I could test I"ll see if I can get it in my lab. Despite your rude reply I do appreciate the detail you provided on which settings you use to get this to work. If I can reproduce your claim then I have several clients who will be very grateful.
Michael
Actually, I run Ubuntu at home and work so I'm familiar with both KDE and Gnome environments. You're right though, for Linux the issue more in the desktop API. In Windows the issue is in the general API. So, no, I didn't separate the layers and used a generic term. Unfortunately, font enlargement is not a practical solution. For example, if a visually impaired user needs 50pt font text in order to read the text, there is not enough space on the screen to fit much if anything properly and most applications will not display correctly if you try to do that to their menu items and icons. So, large print software takes a portion of the screen (let's say the top left quadrant as one example) and magnifies every pixel in that region and redisplays it as the only image on the screen. This means you don't see the whole screen at a time but as you move your mouse to the edges of the screen it moves the display so you can look around the "real screen". You get a similar effect if you try using a hand magnifier (at high levels of magnification) to read text on a page. You can only read what you see through the magnifier and that may only be a few letters at a time. Thankfully, you can usually get several words at a time using computer magnification.
As a side note, Linux accessibility in general has improved a good deal in the past few years but is still not in a place where I am comfortable recommending it for any of my clients. However, the reason I use Ubuntu in an all Windows agency is to test accessibility out and watch for when it reaches a reasonable stage as a low cost solution for the blind and low vision population who can benefit from low cost computer equipment. Usable large print software starts at $400 and screen readers start at $800. These tend to both need upgrading frequently and upgrades cost hundreds per year.
Hope this clarifies a bit. If you have any more questions feel free to contact me directly.
Since I saw the same question posted in amny places let me go ahead and explain it once in one place. FYI I have been teaching the blind and people with multiple disabilities how to use computers for competitive employment for nearly 10 years.
There is no operating system that actually has speech and large print capabilities built into the core. Accessibility has always been a "bolt on" solution. In many cases, large print software and screen reading software has altered and even mangled video drivers in order to try to figure out what was being put on the screen to work with it. However, in the last few years there has been a move to incorporate the ability for third party software such as screen readers and large print software to be able to access the data in otehr apps more easily so that the text can be read by the screen readers. Unfortunately, it is still possible (and common) to run into applications that use odd ways of writing to the video cards that the large print software is unable to intercept. Therefore you will get issues such as in Microsoft Word where if you insert Word Art it is invisible when you are using large print software but visible when you disable the software.
And of course, we all hate Microsoft for being a monopoly so the adaptive technology industry is rather happy (I'm sure) that MS doesn't incorporate a useful large print and screen reader software built into the OS. Now, there is large print and speech applications built into Windows. However, they are no better than many two-bit freeware packages and are not practical for long term use if you're going to be as efficient as a sighted person at work.
Mac OS has large print and speech applications as well. However, the large print software doesn't track the typing cursor. They have had this flaw for years and seem too lazy to fix it. This makes the software nearly useless for word processing. Their screen reader leaves plenty of room for improvement as well. Unfortunately, since the move to Mac OS X there are no longer 3rd party vendors for large print and speech for the Mac (there used to be).
Hopefully that clears a few things up. Now, as for Open Office, I have been using it for a low vision user who need minimal magnification with large print software and it seems to be OK although there are some odd random artifacts that clear up. Not a great solution but it will do for that particular situation. However, screen readers and Open Office are still not where they need to be. In OO.o's dfense, they are aware of this and, I believe, working on it. Here's hoping we'll see some movement soon.
Michael Wigle
Computer Access Specialist
Cincinnati Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Would the country have to be called VOMmit?
They just pulled the release. Apparently they weren't supposed to have released it yet. Anyone have a cache of the release?
Actually, even Kurzweil's desktop version can't do usable COR on advanced math. Advanced math still needs to be manually transcribed by a Braille Transcriptionist into a form of Braille called Nemeth code. Then it can be read and used by a blind student who knows the advanced math code. I'm not sure why there is no demand in New Zealand for advanced math and other science textbooks in Braille other than perhaps not enough blind studetns there are interested but in the U.S., strategies for getting advanced math formulas into Braille from the textbook is in the forefront of discussion in schools because so many blind students need to take those courses.
Michael Wigle Cincinnati Association for the Blind
I realize this was a troll but I can't resist because there some people who actually think they feel that way until they start to think. Natural selection, eh? OK, run naked into the woods with no tools, no supplies, and live off the land for one year. You're not allowed to make primitive tools because this is natural selection, right? Survival of the fittest? Oh wait, you mean you were given a brain to use? Imagine that, so just perhaps, our ability to think, work in groups (tribal hunting), and have a variety of skills and strengths and being able to make use of them *IS* letting natural selection take it's place. Believe it or not, there are blind people who have contributed to society.
As a side note, since you are probably between 18 and 35 (notice I'm trying to give you the benefit fo the doubt) I can guarantee that if you haven't died in 50 years (which is quite likely) you will be going blind if not already legally blind. Are you going to kill yourself? Sit in your home and never go out letting someone else treat you like an incompetent child? Or are you going to take some Mobility lessons, fork out a few grand and move about with independence and read your own restaurant menus and street signs and food labels.
When you're young and healthy it's easy to be cocky. But I assure you, nobody gets out of here alive and those who live the longest all lose their vision. Do you wanna live forever, punk?