I doubt I have obscure hardware, seeing as how parts from all of these manufacturers are quite commonly found in your average systems. The most obscure I think would be the Brother MFC and the Turtle Beach Riviera, but even those are rather cheap commodity add-ons easily found at places like Staples or Walmart. The Linux driver for the Riviera was released by Turtle Beach as unsupported, granted.
I believe part of the Intel chipset issue is due to the fact that they had micro-kernel patches released for Windows and did not at the time (haven't checked in a few months) have those patches available for Linux, even though my chipset and processor are several years old.
That being said, putting Ubuntu on older Dell equipment has not been the easiest - I've had much more success doing it on HP, Gateway and Compaq systems. I used to build my own systems, but I got tired of the hardware upgrade treadmill and found it easier and cheaper time-wise to order something from HP or Dell that at least came with a warranty.
Your mileage may vary, but I am just speaking from my personal experience.
To be fair, Mepis and Knoppix have done the best at detecting and installing proper drivers for my hardware, failing only on the Riviera, Linksys and ATI drivers, and the chipset/micro-kernel updates, so I have to use a CLI until I can manually install and configure the drivers and.conf files so I get a nice, shiny KDE desktop with working sound and wireless (the 3Com gear worked like a charm from first boot, so I was able to update/upgrade/install drivers for the rest)... I am just saying, people need to stop crowing about how easy Ubuntu and its derivatives are and how accurate and reliable the hardware detection on it is when it really isn't, especially compared to some other distros. I'd actually say Mepis was a lot easier in that department overall to have a running system from first insertion of DVD in my situation at least.
You just might want to check that their connections are properly tweaked as far as RWIN, MTU, etc go. 14/5 compared to 1.2/290 is a vast, vast difference that should never happen if they are paying for a certain tier of service, even if it is advertised as "up to" that higher rate. I'd also do a smoke ping and line quality tests, etc over at BroadbandReports, because there is something definitely not right with those connections if that is the average drop in performance. There may also be mis-configured firewalls, routers, mis-provisioned lines, water leaks, etc causing such issues.
My advertised and provisioned rate via Atlantic Broadband cable is 5/512. I am actually getting closer to 6 or 7 down and 468 up at all times due to some tweaking I did. Even the AtlanticBB tech seemed a bit shocked that I was getting more than 5 down, and said it was unusual, but they wouldn't re-provision the line or anything because of it. I count myself lucky, because Verizon's service here is absolute rubbish - $25.00/month for 1.5/768 DSL that, shall I say in the politest way possible, isn't actually working for more than two weeks per month because they are too cheap to replace lines that were put up in this town sometime in the 1950's at the latest (Not to mention they never actually bother to show up for scheduled appointments to rewire buildings that were constructed pre-1900, such as mine - big old Victorian type home turned into apartments).
Powerboost does mess with speed testing, however those "tests" are very rarely accurate anyhow, as I can rate higher on a test to Seattle or Los Angeles than I do to say Pittsburgh, Toronto or NYC, which are MUCH closer to where I live (by several thousand wire miles). It's more accurate to calculate your average rates by downloading/uploading large files from/to a university/public FTP or something, at least in my experience.
They generally won't take an interest though, because most "crapware" offers rely on significant missing functionality in Windows - they are offering products to do things that A) a Linux-based OS has no real need for (anti-virus, anti-spyware) or B) already has programs installed by default that handle it (useful cd/dvd authoring, video, audio, etc).
Granted - MS is getting better about including such functionality by default, but honestly, they have a long way to go to match anything offered by say Ubuntu, Mepis, or Apple's OSX.
We'll just leave the closed vs free argument right out of this for now and say that these companies won't offer trial-ware on such systems for several reasons.
This being said, I game and do other things that Linux does rather poorly at the moment, so I use WinXP Pro for most of my computing time. To me Linux is just something to be played with now and again because it doesn't quite do what I need it to do (that may change in the near-future, now with ATI and whatnot ready to release real Linux drivers with 3D support instead of hacked together binary blobs and obscure config file voodoo).
That they are even bothering to announce the triple-core Phenoms when Best Buy already has the quad-core Phenoms on sale... I mean really, unless they are seriously going to undercut the Core 2 chips there is no point in announcing it, because general consumers don't give a rats ass.
In case you are wondering what system Best Buy is selling, it's a Gateway AMD LIVE! Ultimate Digital Entertainment System. Features the AMD Phenom Quad Core 9600. Price $1279.97, with the following:
Computer with 19" HD LCD Widescreen Monitor and Canon All-in-One Printer. Windows Vista(TM) Home Premium, watch and record TV, 3GB DDR2 memory, 1 terabyte hard drive, hybrid Blu-ray Disc(TM) and HD DVD player, reads and writes dual-layer DVDs and CDs, ATI Radeon(TM) HD 2400 XT graphics with 256MB dedicated graphics memory and DirectX® 10, wireless keyboard and mouse, and carbon fiber faceplate. 19" HD LCD Widescreen (GM5664/FPD1976W/MP210). Upgrade to a 22" HD LCD monitor for $110 more.
I hate BB as much as the rest of you, but as of right now, they are the only retailer I've come across selling Phenom-based systems to the mass market.
From what I've seen so far, the devs all make any encryption in their clients optional. It's a feature the end-user has to enable. It doesn't do any good to continue to make the encryption optional, with the default setting being off. You can have all of the encryption in the clients/protocol you want, but if you don't force it to be on as the default, then a large majority of end-users probably won't be bothered to go hunting through settings to enable it either.
Ergo, there's no point to adding the encryption in the first place if hardly anyone is going to use it by default.
I happen to use it because my ISP does dirty tricks to torrent traffic (AT&T uses Sandvine as well, and they are my ISP's upstream provider, even though my ISP is a cableco and not a telco). With my hardware firewall (based on IPTables) configured to drop all RST packets on my torrent ports, and encryption enabled (and a sane number of total connections set in the client), I can actually torrent again just fine without any other added encryption at the protocol level. But that's because I actively put in a good amount of time researching how to do so and actually implementing it. Your average torrent/p2p user can't be bothered doing that.
If I were a blackhat, servers running Unix-like OSes would certainly be my choice target for a variety of reasons. In fact, I would dare say most spam/spyware/virus outfits are nothing more than the low-end of the criminal scale. The REAL blackhat/criminal organizations want the servers, and most servers run Unix or a Unix-like OS...
That's where the real $$$ is at kids. I would venture a guess and suggest that they use their low-end spam/spyware/pr0n operations (and all the misery that entails for end-users and sysadmins) to fund the attacks against their REAL targets - the servers and the enormous wealth of data accessible via the same.
"I would think that Kaspersky would be sortof the defacto standard that you have to be better than to get someone to spend money. Oh well, we all know the reasons for it, but ClamAV sort of sucks anyway." There, fixed that for you.
1) Telcos/Cablecos/ISPs have dial-up mentalities in a broadband world. They need to face reality. This is no longer 1995.
2) I have no sympathy for their costs. They've been handed over billions of dollars in publicfunding aside from their subscriber fees, not to mention partnership funding, etc through various governmental and private programs across the US. I don't want to hear their whining about the costs of infrastructure. The High Cost portion of the Universal Service Fee alone brought in $4 billion for payouts to the telcos during the 2006 fiscal year.
When I read stories about them using money they receive for broadband roll-out in rural/suburban/small-town areas to subsidize phone-lines to mansions and resorts in Maui, I just want to send them a big FUCK YOU in the mail instead of my bill payment.
3) They are finally figuring out ways to get back those "walled gardens" that AOL, Compuserve and the like practically killed the internet with way back when. If they can't buy the laws, then they will force it via "tiered" services and "data caps". They want a monopoly on the connection, the content, and the bill payments. I've read many, many comments on here trying to defend this disgusting pigopolist behavior. Fucking pathetic.
4) I wonder why telcos/cablecos/isps are allowed to get away with fraud on such a massive scale? I don't know what else you call advertising, promising, and selling one thing while delivering something almost totally different. They either need to buck up and deliver the goods or stfu and go bankrupt. No more of this weasel-word crap. If they say they offering unlimited usage, but really are giving you "Our definition of unlimited means you can't use your connection for anything other than email on days ending in Y", then that is false fucking advertising, and if it isn't spelled out that way in your contract, sue the bastards.
5) Disclaimer: I sued Verizon and won. For false advertising. So, you too, can win.
I have also noticed this happening at bars in my sub-10k population town. It's kind of freaky to see someone else noticing it too. It's almost like the barkeeps read it in some magazine or something...kind of like those stupid magazines that PHBs are always reading that tell them trendy new management techniques to make our lives miserable.
But as far as pranks go, I found this rather amusing myself. Some people just have no sense of humour. That, and they forget the fine upstanding tradition of pranking in the tech-geek world.
The rings were forged by the elves (specifically, Celebrimbor and the smiths of Eregion) with the exception of The One Ring. The One Ring was forged by Sauron in secret at Mt. Doom. Sauron never touched the 3 rings of the elves, which is why Galadriel, Gandalf and Elrond could wear them, but they could still feel Sauron's corruptive influence through them.
You might want to try TeraCopy. Great little program. It allows you to manually adjust the copy/paste/move buffer cache on the fly, pause and resume copy/move functions, and even performs error checking after completion. There are both Free and Pro versions.
* Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.
* Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click.
* Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.
* Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
* Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.
* Full Unicode support.
The Pro version has these extra features with more features coming in later versions:
# Select files with the same extension/same folder # Remove selected files from the copy queue
I've installed it and have never looked back at using Explorer for those functions again. This program is a real gem for people who perform a lot of copy/paste/move in Windows and don't want to install something like Total Commander.
I hope it helps.
As for Seagate drives, well, I used to like their SCSI drives back in the day, but anymore, I stick to Hitachi/Samsung/WD and I even own a Maxtor external drive that has now functioned for over a month without dying (I think it's a new record for Maxtor drives, those things are well-known for tanking within one month - I think Seagate was a positive influence on their manufacturing process).
You sound like the perfect candidate for the IETab or IEView extensions. Now all you have to do is configure your security settings once, and then never open IE directly again for those IE-only sites. Unfortunately, NoScript functionality doesn't work in the rendered tabs, but since you have scripting blocked in your IE settings anyhow, this is only a minor annoyance.
Some silly people even install some sort of ActiveX extension for Firefox. Why they would do something dumb like that I will never know (and no, I can think of no valid reason to blow a hole in your security by installing ActiveX in Firefox. If you want to use ActiveX, stick to IE).
Note: I won't link to the ActiveX extension, it causes a bug in NoScript that opens up your entire system to hostile takeover. However, there is a work-around for that, but better safe than sorry I say.
While those two particular dialects or languages are not in a default installation of WinXP SP2, there is however several interesting choices in languages that are.
For instance: Sanskrit, Azeri (in Cyrillic, Latin, and Azerbaijan Cyrillic and Latin forms), Divehi, Faroese, Galician, Kyrygz, Tswana, Xhosa and a few others.
This information is contained in.NLS files (National Language Support), and accessed via the Win32 NLS API. Programmers and webdevs can retrieve country/regional name abbreviations via a call to the GetLocaleInfo() API with LCTYPE set to SABBREVCTRYNAME. They can get access to the abbreviated name of the language via a call to the GetLocaleInfo() API with LCTYPE set to SABBREVLANGNAME.
So if a company releases software that only seems to be in English, it is generally because they were too lazy to program in a few simple API calls to retrieve the proper data from the.NLS files, etc. There's very little reason NOT to have multi-lingual support built right into any serious software project in this day and age. Configuration data for language support is also easily contained within the tree structure of XML files if you feel like going that route instead.
And you know how they get you with that loophole? Every go into a Wallmart, Best Buy, or shop online at any number of random sites (Apple iTunes or Amazon for instance)? Now you have a good idea of why they ask you for your phone number when you pay by credit card or otherwise ask you for your phone number as part of account registry or the final sale information.
Convenient way to not only harvest your purchasing history, but it also gives them implicit permission to call your home and to allow their "partners" to do the same. Some of these companies may not have actually violated the list directly. Not their fault people don't pay attention to such details ya know.
Some security updates won't be installed even via Automatic Updates if WGA is not found to be installed on the machine. There's a programmed limit tied into a WGA check. It doesn't check if your system is genuine or not, but it checks if WGA is installed and operational. If it is, you get all hotfixes past a certain KB number. If it is found to be a defect WGA install, you only get those hotfixes that are excluded from the check. This is why Autopatcher was so useful. You could install all of those patches if WGA was present or not, because Autopatcher never checked for an operational WGA installation, and the individual hotfixes don't either. It is the MS Automatic Update service that confers with the MS update servers and performs the check.
I've found this out the hard way before I caught on to exactly what was happening, and just used Autopatcher instead for all of my Windows installations. Not that I use any pirated OS mind you, but I've had activation issues that required a funky workaround given to me by MS Support Services for WinXP Pro SP2, which made WGA say my install wasn't Genuine when it is. The issue had to do with something in the SP2 upgrade from SP1a making WinLogon do strange things and give me mystical error messages that only a Russian could possibly decipher (or some lady from China working for MS Support, as was the case here).
On a side note: I know people will probably say "Use Linux". No thanks. It doesn't do what I need it to do (I play many games that require DirectX and don't run under Wine or Cedega, and I use Citrix Metaframe, Solidworks, etc), and my hardware isn't supported via anything other than ugly hacking about in a terminal, which I'll take a pass on doing, because frankly, I don't have the time nor the inclination to do so (Mepis is the only distro that even came close to detecting most of my hardware automatically, and that was minus any networking or accelerated graphics).
It's fine to play around with on a LiveCD (and I have several distros in this form), but until it does what I need it to do aka, "Right Tool For the Job at Hand", right out of the box, it's a non-starter in my situation. Maybe some year. Either that or I need to stop using such obscure hardware (mainly it is lazy manufacturers releasing buggy or totally broken Linux drivers) and software (game devs not using OpenGL and OpenAL).
The funny thing is, they just had most of that patent invalidated based on prior art due to the efforts of a gentleman from New Zealand.
I wrote something about it and submitted, but it never made it out of FireHose, and I haven't seen any similar article posted to Slashdot, even though I would have thought everyone would be discussing it.
IPTables
#!/bin/sh #Replace 6883 with you BT port BT_PORT=6883
#Flush the filters iptables -F
#Apply new filters iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT #Comcast BitTorrent seeding block workaround iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport $BT_PORT --tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT #BitTorrent iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport $BT_PORT -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport $BT_PORT -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-host-prohibited IPFW
#Replace bt port with your actual port number ipfw add deny tcp from any to any {bt port} in tcpflags rst
It's not that they don't care, you have to take into account that this current administration has issued more signing statements "exempting" themselves from various bills signed into law, and current laws on the books than any administration in US history. The statements number in the hundreds at last count. They claim Executive Privilege on just about anything Congress sends up to the White House, including their use of the Congressional Power of Subpeoena (see Scooter Libby trial, Gonzales, Gitmo, PATRIOT Act, FISA, etc). The person responsible for almost every single signing statement signed by the President and issued out of the White House is now VP Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff. If anyone should be marked as a traitor to the Constitution and put on trial, that's one guy to take a close look at first, with Cheney and Bush right behind him. They've done everything they can to undermine the Constitution and Congressional/Judicial power without resorting to shredding the damned thing, and all in the name of "restoring power to the Presidency".
Just to let you know, that had to be one hell of a slow T1 (fractional?) you tested on. That site loaded in 1.42 seconds in Firefox including all of the images.
You might want to actually test it on a cable or dsl connection from "home" (and my cable connection is nothing speedy, 5mbit down 512kbit up).
Interesting choice of artwork though, and your art history lesson is hilarious:)
Use of Javascript to go back a page to previous content? Boo. People make things so complicated (mainly by using unnecessary things like Javascript), all you need is a simple hyperlink:)
Take your own word of advice, Java(script) is good when it is a dark brown liquid that comes in a cup. On webpages, meh, plain text ftw.
How does Debian handle time-based logins, VPNS, etc that are restricted by security policy? Correlation: How does it handle the same when they rely on Local Time and not GMT?
For example: User A can only login to Server B between 8am and 8:15am, but can maintain the open link until 5pm. This was set up to restrict login access by User A for whatever reason to Server B, which is offshore. If the time zone data is not applied, won't this screw with the restricted login policy? I would think that would be a security issue as well as a use issue.
Another example: Remote backups, etc that rely on accurate local time settings to perform their operations on a tight time schedule. How would the timezone patch not being applied affect this?
I really don't know these things, as I don't use Debian (or Linux in general), which is why I am asking. Excuse my ignorance please.
My final question: Was the fact that this patch was released to the Volatile repo mentioned on the Debian website, or pushed via subscribed newsletter/RSS feed and not just some "obscure" newsgroup posting? If yes, then the Debian team has done all it needs to have done, and it was the end-user's problem for not paying attention to announcements. If nothing but a short newsgroup post was issued, then the Debian team is at fault for not doing a proper announcement (I know as a systems admin, I rarely have the time while on duty to go scouring newsgroups for update announcements).
Actually, Unisys hires through temp agencies and the temps only have to pass an FBI background check.
I know this, because I worked for IBM in a government data center at the time. We handled the big iron (oddly enough, including some machines from Sun and some ancient AS/400s) and the Unisys flunkies did operations and tape library stuff (cartridge and reel to reel). DOT, IRS, etc stuff. Believe it or not, they had PCs in there running Win95 and NT4 with no egress filtering to the internet... There were quite a few Ukrainians, Chinese, Russian and Estonian employees working there for Unisys. Over in the other room Lockheed Martin had their stuff running. No one but U.S. citizens allowed in there, and no outside internet access. I pitied the network admins (not really).
What you are describing is intentional behavior modification by educational systems in the USA, and has been ongoing for about 100 or so years. It's the intention of educational systems to train a global workforce, and to discourage what is known as the "Renaissance Man". People are trained like Pavlovian dogs to do what their masters ask of them, and nothing more.
You can read more about it in the book entitled, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America", by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt. ISBN: 0-9667071-0-9. There's very little commentary by the author in the book. She just lays out what she has found in chronological order. It's up to you to draw your own conclusions. Personally, my wife was quite dismayed after having read just a portion of this book. She's a teacher, and many of the methods described within are what she has been trained and encouraged to use on the mentally and emotionally disabled/challenged children in her classroom. So even the weakest amongst us are not excluded from this "grand social plan".
It sounds like your boss is the perfect product of this "training". Trained to do what she is told, no more, no less. That's part of the Pavlovian/Skinnerian training used by the US educational system. She's a good doggy, so she gets the $$$ as a reward for doing what she is told and not asking any questions as to what she is doing, or questioning the motives behind what her superiors order her to do.
Essentially, she's a well-trained pet rock.
This might get flagged as flame-bait, but it's all entirely true. If you care to examine your superiors and co-workers more closely, you will surely be able to find more than a few who act in this manner. It's not their fault however, so don't blame them. If anything, do what you can to encourage them to read more books, and to attend lectures, etc. that might broaden their horizons and get them to start asking "Why?" and "What for?".
Slashdot Mirror
I doubt I have obscure hardware, seeing as how parts from all of these manufacturers are quite commonly found in your average systems. The most obscure I think would be the Brother MFC and the Turtle Beach Riviera, but even those are rather cheap commodity add-ons easily found at places like Staples or Walmart. The Linux driver for the Riviera was released by Turtle Beach as unsupported, granted.
.conf files so I get a nice, shiny KDE desktop with working sound and wireless (the 3Com gear worked like a charm from first boot, so I was able to update/upgrade/install drivers for the rest)... I am just saying, people need to stop crowing about how easy Ubuntu and its derivatives are and how accurate and reliable the hardware detection on it is when it really isn't, especially compared to some other distros. I'd actually say Mepis was a lot easier in that department overall to have a running system from first insertion of DVD in my situation at least.
I believe part of the Intel chipset issue is due to the fact that they had micro-kernel patches released for Windows and did not at the time (haven't checked in a few months) have those patches available for Linux, even though my chipset and processor are several years old.
That being said, putting Ubuntu on older Dell equipment has not been the easiest - I've had much more success doing it on HP, Gateway and Compaq systems. I used to build my own systems, but I got tired of the hardware upgrade treadmill and found it easier and cheaper time-wise to order something from HP or Dell that at least came with a warranty.
Your mileage may vary, but I am just speaking from my personal experience.
To be fair, Mepis and Knoppix have done the best at detecting and installing proper drivers for my hardware, failing only on the Riviera, Linksys and ATI drivers, and the chipset/micro-kernel updates, so I have to use a CLI until I can manually install and configure the drivers and
You just might want to check that their connections are properly tweaked as far as RWIN, MTU, etc go. 14/5 compared to 1.2/290 is a vast, vast difference that should never happen if they are paying for a certain tier of service, even if it is advertised as "up to" that higher rate. I'd also do a smoke ping and line quality tests, etc over at BroadbandReports, because there is something definitely not right with those connections if that is the average drop in performance. There may also be mis-configured firewalls, routers, mis-provisioned lines, water leaks, etc causing such issues.
My advertised and provisioned rate via Atlantic Broadband cable is 5/512. I am actually getting closer to 6 or 7 down and 468 up at all times due to some tweaking I did. Even the AtlanticBB tech seemed a bit shocked that I was getting more than 5 down, and said it was unusual, but they wouldn't re-provision the line or anything because of it. I count myself lucky, because Verizon's service here is absolute rubbish - $25.00/month for 1.5/768 DSL that, shall I say in the politest way possible, isn't actually working for more than two weeks per month because they are too cheap to replace lines that were put up in this town sometime in the 1950's at the latest (Not to mention they never actually bother to show up for scheduled appointments to rewire buildings that were constructed pre-1900, such as mine - big old Victorian type home turned into apartments).
Powerboost does mess with speed testing, however those "tests" are very rarely accurate anyhow, as I can rate higher on a test to Seattle or Los Angeles than I do to say Pittsburgh, Toronto or NYC, which are MUCH closer to where I live (by several thousand wire miles). It's more accurate to calculate your average rates by downloading/uploading large files from/to a university/public FTP or something, at least in my experience.
They generally won't take an interest though, because most "crapware" offers rely on significant missing functionality in Windows - they are offering products to do things that A) a Linux-based OS has no real need for (anti-virus, anti-spyware) or B) already has programs installed by default that handle it (useful cd/dvd authoring, video, audio, etc).
Granted - MS is getting better about including such functionality by default, but honestly, they have a long way to go to match anything offered by say Ubuntu, Mepis, or Apple's OSX.
We'll just leave the closed vs free argument right out of this for now and say that these companies won't offer trial-ware on such systems for several reasons.
This being said, I game and do other things that Linux does rather poorly at the moment, so I use WinXP Pro for most of my computing time. To me Linux is just something to be played with now and again because it doesn't quite do what I need it to do (that may change in the near-future, now with ATI and whatnot ready to release real Linux drivers with 3D support instead of hacked together binary blobs and obscure config file voodoo).
And you sir, are full of it...
On two machines I had to:
Install ATI drivers.
Install Linksys drivers.
Install 3Com drivers.
Install Brother printer drivers.
Install Intel Chipset drivers.
Install Realtek NIC drivers.
Install SoundMAX audio drivers.
Install Turtle Beach audio drivers.
Thanks for playing, try again.
That they are even bothering to announce the triple-core Phenoms when Best Buy already has the quad-core Phenoms on sale... I mean really, unless they are seriously going to undercut the Core 2 chips there is no point in announcing it, because general consumers don't give a rats ass.
In case you are wondering what system Best Buy is selling, it's a Gateway AMD LIVE! Ultimate Digital Entertainment System. Features the AMD Phenom Quad Core 9600. Price $1279.97, with the following:
Computer with 19" HD LCD Widescreen Monitor and Canon All-in-One Printer. Windows Vista(TM) Home Premium, watch and record TV, 3GB DDR2 memory, 1 terabyte hard drive, hybrid Blu-ray Disc(TM) and HD DVD player, reads and writes dual-layer DVDs and CDs, ATI Radeon(TM) HD 2400 XT graphics with 256MB dedicated graphics memory and DirectX® 10, wireless keyboard and mouse, and carbon fiber faceplate. 19" HD LCD Widescreen (GM5664/FPD1976W/MP210). Upgrade to a 22" HD LCD monitor for $110 more.
I hate BB as much as the rest of you, but as of right now, they are the only retailer I've come across selling Phenom-based systems to the mass market.
From what I've seen so far, the devs all make any encryption in their clients optional. It's a feature the end-user has to enable. It doesn't do any good to continue to make the encryption optional, with the default setting being off. You can have all of the encryption in the clients/protocol you want, but if you don't force it to be on as the default, then a large majority of end-users probably won't be bothered to go hunting through settings to enable it either.
Ergo, there's no point to adding the encryption in the first place if hardly anyone is going to use it by default.
I happen to use it because my ISP does dirty tricks to torrent traffic (AT&T uses Sandvine as well, and they are my ISP's upstream provider, even though my ISP is a cableco and not a telco). With my hardware firewall (based on IPTables) configured to drop all RST packets on my torrent ports, and encryption enabled (and a sane number of total connections set in the client), I can actually torrent again just fine without any other added encryption at the protocol level. But that's because I actively put in a good amount of time researching how to do so and actually implementing it. Your average torrent/p2p user can't be bothered doing that.
If I were a blackhat, servers running Unix-like OSes would certainly be my choice target for a variety of reasons. In fact, I would dare say most spam/spyware/virus outfits are nothing more than the low-end of the criminal scale. The REAL blackhat/criminal organizations want the servers, and most servers run Unix or a Unix-like OS...
That's where the real $$$ is at kids. I would venture a guess and suggest that they use their low-end spam/spyware/pr0n operations (and all the misery that entails for end-users and sysadmins) to fund the attacks against their REAL targets - the servers and the enormous wealth of data accessible via the same.
Easy fix for the issue you mentioned...
In about:config, you put noscript.firstRunRedirection into the filter box. Modify the boolean from true to false. Restart FireFox.
No more NoScript Update page. Enjoy.
1) Telcos/Cablecos/ISPs have dial-up mentalities in a broadband world. They need to face reality. This is no longer 1995.
2) I have no sympathy for their costs. They've been handed over billions of dollars in publicfunding aside from their subscriber fees, not to mention partnership funding, etc through various governmental and private programs across the US. I don't want to hear their whining about the costs of infrastructure. The High Cost portion of the Universal Service Fee alone brought in $4 billion for payouts to the telcos during the 2006 fiscal year.
When I read stories about them using money they receive for broadband roll-out in rural/suburban/small-town areas to subsidize phone-lines to mansions and resorts in Maui, I just want to send them a big FUCK YOU in the mail instead of my bill payment.
3) They are finally figuring out ways to get back those "walled gardens" that AOL, Compuserve and the like practically killed the internet with way back when. If they can't buy the laws, then they will force it via "tiered" services and "data caps". They want a monopoly on the connection, the content, and the bill payments. I've read many, many comments on here trying to defend this disgusting pigopolist behavior. Fucking pathetic.
4) I wonder why telcos/cablecos/isps are allowed to get away with fraud on such a massive scale? I don't know what else you call advertising, promising, and selling one thing while delivering something almost totally different. They either need to buck up and deliver the goods or stfu and go bankrupt. No more of this weasel-word crap. If they say they offering unlimited usage, but really are giving you "Our definition of unlimited means you can't use your connection for anything other than email on days ending in Y", then that is false fucking advertising, and if it isn't spelled out that way in your contract, sue the bastards.
5) Disclaimer: I sued Verizon and won. For false advertising. So, you too, can win.
[/end rant]
I have also noticed this happening at bars in my sub-10k population town. It's kind of freaky to see someone else noticing it too. It's almost like the barkeeps read it in some magazine or something...kind of like those stupid magazines that PHBs are always reading that tell them trendy new management techniques to make our lives miserable.
But as far as pranks go, I found this rather amusing myself. Some people just have no sense of humour. That, and they forget the fine upstanding tradition of pranking in the tech-geek world.
The rings were forged by the elves (specifically, Celebrimbor and the smiths of Eregion) with the exception of The One Ring. The One Ring was forged by Sauron in secret at Mt. Doom. Sauron never touched the 3 rings of the elves, which is why Galadriel, Gandalf and Elrond could wear them, but they could still feel Sauron's corruptive influence through them.
You might want to try TeraCopy. Great little program. It allows you to manually adjust the copy/paste/move buffer cache on the fly, pause and resume copy/move functions, and even performs error checking after completion. There are both Free and Pro versions.
* Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.
* Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click.
* Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.
* Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
* Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.
* Full Unicode support.
The Pro version has these extra features with more features coming in later versions:
# Select files with the same extension/same folder
# Remove selected files from the copy queue
I've installed it and have never looked back at using Explorer for those functions again. This program is a real gem for people who perform a lot of copy/paste/move in Windows and don't want to install something like Total Commander.
I hope it helps.
As for Seagate drives, well, I used to like their SCSI drives back in the day, but anymore, I stick to Hitachi/Samsung/WD and I even own a Maxtor external drive that has now functioned for over a month without dying (I think it's a new record for Maxtor drives, those things are well-known for tanking within one month - I think Seagate was a positive influence on their manufacturing process).
You sound like the perfect candidate for the IETab or IEView extensions. Now all you have to do is configure your security settings once, and then never open IE directly again for those IE-only sites. Unfortunately, NoScript functionality doesn't work in the rendered tabs, but since you have scripting blocked in your IE settings anyhow, this is only a minor annoyance.
Some silly people even install some sort of ActiveX extension for Firefox. Why they would do something dumb like that I will never know (and no, I can think of no valid reason to blow a hole in your security by installing ActiveX in Firefox. If you want to use ActiveX, stick to IE).
Note: I won't link to the ActiveX extension, it causes a bug in NoScript that opens up your entire system to hostile takeover. However, there is a work-around for that, but better safe than sorry I say.
While those two particular dialects or languages are not in a default installation of WinXP SP2, there is however several interesting choices in languages that are.
.NLS files (National Language Support), and accessed via the Win32 NLS API. Programmers and webdevs can retrieve country/regional name abbreviations via a call to the GetLocaleInfo() API with LCTYPE set to SABBREVCTRYNAME. They can get access to the abbreviated name of the language via a call to the GetLocaleInfo() API with LCTYPE set to SABBREVLANGNAME.
.NLS files, etc. There's very little reason NOT to have multi-lingual support built right into any serious software project in this day and age. Configuration data for language support is also easily contained within the tree structure of XML files if you feel like going that route instead.
For instance: Sanskrit, Azeri (in Cyrillic, Latin, and Azerbaijan Cyrillic and Latin forms), Divehi, Faroese, Galician, Kyrygz, Tswana, Xhosa and a few others.
This information is contained in
So if a company releases software that only seems to be in English, it is generally because they were too lazy to program in a few simple API calls to retrieve the proper data from the
And you know how they get you with that loophole? Every go into a Wallmart, Best Buy, or shop online at any number of random sites (Apple iTunes or Amazon for instance)? Now you have a good idea of why they ask you for your phone number when you pay by credit card or otherwise ask you for your phone number as part of account registry or the final sale information.
Convenient way to not only harvest your purchasing history, but it also gives them implicit permission to call your home and to allow their "partners" to do the same. Some of these companies may not have actually violated the list directly. Not their fault people don't pay attention to such details ya know.
The problem with your solution is:
Some security updates won't be installed even via Automatic Updates if WGA is not found to be installed on the machine. There's a programmed limit tied into a WGA check. It doesn't check if your system is genuine or not, but it checks if WGA is installed and operational. If it is, you get all hotfixes past a certain KB number. If it is found to be a defect WGA install, you only get those hotfixes that are excluded from the check. This is why Autopatcher was so useful. You could install all of those patches if WGA was present or not, because Autopatcher never checked for an operational WGA installation, and the individual hotfixes don't either. It is the MS Automatic Update service that confers with the MS update servers and performs the check.
I've found this out the hard way before I caught on to exactly what was happening, and just used Autopatcher instead for all of my Windows installations. Not that I use any pirated OS mind you, but I've had activation issues that required a funky workaround given to me by MS Support Services for WinXP Pro SP2, which made WGA say my install wasn't Genuine when it is. The issue had to do with something in the SP2 upgrade from SP1a making WinLogon do strange things and give me mystical error messages that only a Russian could possibly decipher (or some lady from China working for MS Support, as was the case here).
On a side note: I know people will probably say "Use Linux". No thanks. It doesn't do what I need it to do (I play many games that require DirectX and don't run under Wine or Cedega, and I use Citrix Metaframe, Solidworks, etc), and my hardware isn't supported via anything other than ugly hacking about in a terminal, which I'll take a pass on doing, because frankly, I don't have the time nor the inclination to do so (Mepis is the only distro that even came close to detecting most of my hardware automatically, and that was minus any networking or accelerated graphics).
It's fine to play around with on a LiveCD (and I have several distros in this form), but until it does what I need it to do aka, "Right Tool For the Job at Hand", right out of the box, it's a non-starter in my situation. Maybe some year. Either that or I need to stop using such obscure hardware (mainly it is lazy manufacturers releasing buggy or totally broken Linux drivers) and software (game devs not using OpenGL and OpenAL).
The funny thing is, they just had most of that patent invalidated based on prior art due to the efforts of a gentleman from New Zealand.
I wrote something about it and submitted, but it never made it out of FireHose, and I haven't seen any similar article posted to Slashdot, even though I would have thought everyone would be discussing it.
Read about it here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/17/amazon_1-click_patent_ruling/
Especially check out page 2 of the article, where Amazon/Jeff Bezos has prior art in patent form that nuked 3 of their claims in 1-Click.
#Replace 6883 with you BT port
BT_PORT=6883
#Flush the filters
iptables -F
#Apply new filters
iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
#Comcast BitTorrent seeding block workaround
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport $BT_PORT --tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
#BitTorrent
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport $BT_PORT -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport $BT_PORT -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-host-prohibited IPFW #Replace bt port with your actual port number
ipfw add deny tcp from any to any {bt port} in tcpflags rst
It's not that they don't care, you have to take into account that this current administration has issued more signing statements "exempting" themselves from various bills signed into law, and current laws on the books than any administration in US history. The statements number in the hundreds at last count. They claim Executive Privilege on just about anything Congress sends up to the White House, including their use of the Congressional Power of Subpeoena (see Scooter Libby trial, Gonzales, Gitmo, PATRIOT Act, FISA, etc). The person responsible for almost every single signing statement signed by the President and issued out of the White House is now VP Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff. If anyone should be marked as a traitor to the Constitution and put on trial, that's one guy to take a close look at first, with Cheney and Bush right behind him. They've done everything they can to undermine the Constitution and Congressional/Judicial power without resorting to shredding the damned thing, and all in the name of "restoring power to the Presidency".
Why bother even coming up with a creative name for it. Just go get the crack from Gamecopyworld or something, problem solved.
Just to let you know, that had to be one hell of a slow T1 (fractional?) you tested on. That site loaded in 1.42 seconds in Firefox including all of the images.
:)
:)
You might want to actually test it on a cable or dsl connection from "home" (and my cable connection is nothing speedy, 5mbit down 512kbit up).
Interesting choice of artwork though, and your art history lesson is hilarious
Use of Javascript to go back a page to previous content? Boo. People make things so complicated (mainly by using unnecessary things like Javascript), all you need is a simple hyperlink
Take your own word of advice, Java(script) is good when it is a dark brown liquid that comes in a cup. On webpages, meh, plain text ftw.
How does Debian handle time-based logins, VPNS, etc that are restricted by security policy? Correlation: How does it handle the same when they rely on Local Time and not GMT?
For example: User A can only login to Server B between 8am and 8:15am, but can maintain the open link until 5pm. This was set up to restrict login access by User A for whatever reason to Server B, which is offshore. If the time zone data is not applied, won't this screw with the restricted login policy? I would think that would be a security issue as well as a use issue.
Another example: Remote backups, etc that rely on accurate local time settings to perform their operations on a tight time schedule. How would the timezone patch not being applied affect this?
I really don't know these things, as I don't use Debian (or Linux in general), which is why I am asking. Excuse my ignorance please.
My final question: Was the fact that this patch was released to the Volatile repo mentioned on the Debian website, or pushed via subscribed newsletter/RSS feed and not just some "obscure" newsgroup posting? If yes, then the Debian team has done all it needs to have done, and it was the end-user's problem for not paying attention to announcements. If nothing but a short newsgroup post was issued, then the Debian team is at fault for not doing a proper announcement (I know as a systems admin, I rarely have the time while on duty to go scouring newsgroups for update announcements).
Thanks for any insight you might provide.
Actually, Unisys hires through temp agencies and the temps only have to pass an FBI background check.
I know this, because I worked for IBM in a government data center at the time. We handled the big iron (oddly enough, including some machines from Sun and some ancient AS/400s) and the Unisys flunkies did operations and tape library stuff (cartridge and reel to reel). DOT, IRS, etc stuff. Believe it or not, they had PCs in there running Win95 and NT4 with no egress filtering to the internet... There were quite a few Ukrainians, Chinese, Russian and Estonian employees working there for Unisys. Over in the other room Lockheed Martin had their stuff running. No one but U.S. citizens allowed in there, and no outside internet access. I pitied the network admins (not really).
What you are describing is intentional behavior modification by educational systems in the USA, and has been ongoing for about 100 or so years. It's the intention of educational systems to train a global workforce, and to discourage what is known as the "Renaissance Man". People are trained like Pavlovian dogs to do what their masters ask of them, and nothing more.
You can read more about it in the book entitled, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America", by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt. ISBN: 0-9667071-0-9. There's very little commentary by the author in the book. She just lays out what she has found in chronological order. It's up to you to draw your own conclusions. Personally, my wife was quite dismayed after having read just a portion of this book. She's a teacher, and many of the methods described within are what she has been trained and encouraged to use on the mentally and emotionally disabled/challenged children in her classroom. So even the weakest amongst us are not excluded from this "grand social plan".
It sounds like your boss is the perfect product of this "training". Trained to do what she is told, no more, no less. That's part of the Pavlovian/Skinnerian training used by the US educational system. She's a good doggy, so she gets the $$$ as a reward for doing what she is told and not asking any questions as to what she is doing, or questioning the motives behind what her superiors order her to do.
Essentially, she's a well-trained pet rock.
This might get flagged as flame-bait, but it's all entirely true. If you care to examine your superiors and co-workers more closely, you will surely be able to find more than a few who act in this manner. It's not their fault however, so don't blame them. If anything, do what you can to encourage them to read more books, and to attend lectures, etc. that might broaden their horizons and get them to start asking "Why?" and "What for?".