My wife and I payed good money to get out of an AT&T contract several years ago and went over to T-mobile. We can't seem to get away from that company.
Wireless-Q has the defect that you can't broadcast your SSID since that your require devices to observe the signal first first before connecting, which would result in a quantum paradox.
Outbound port 25 suddenly stopped working for us at our home office. My wife has a CRM system that she runs in our home office and it frequently sends emails to her clients (appointment reminders, appointment follow-ups, promotions, etc.). I configured that CRM system to use our mail server setup on a VPS in a data center with Server Axis. After I figured out that it was Comcast that suddenly shut down outbound port 25 from our home, all I did was change the incoming SMTP port on our mail server to be 2500 and everything has been fine ever since (something which may not always be a practical option if you have lots of different groups expecting it to be available on port 25).
But yes, make sure you follow best practices for managing a *legitimate* high-traffic mail server: * Use a static IP * Have proper abuse@ & postmaster@ addresses * Setup an SPF record for your domain * Follow the FTC's CAN-SPAM act (http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business)
Living through your children is the very reason for having your own children, by definition: it's what you do when you pass on your genes.
Dear Mr. Chemistry,
I know in your world the chemical reactions involved in reproduction are all that you see. Combination of chromosomes, DNA replication, mutation, proteins, RNA, etc. These are all well and good, but this species whose DNA your observing developed this little thing called a prefrontal cortex. Since then, this frontal cortex (not merely DNA) has ruled the destiny of this species. After millions of years of this species evolution being heavily influenced by this prefrontal cortex, things like individualism, self-identity, social interaction, personality, culture, etc. have become central to this species.
So I ask that although you must remain focused solely on your duties of executing the chemistry underpinning life, you keep an open mind to the fact that this species is no longer bound entirely by those chemical reactions. Perhaps a viewing of one of their own exploring some of these details would help.
GP and parent both make good points. However, GP perspective is a bit outdated. Spring < 2.0 an earlier was all (mostly) about XML config. You'd have dozens and dozens of lines of XML to do what was ultimately a fairly simple task (ie: quartz jobs or AOP).
Spring 2.0+ (especially 3.0) made two very fundamental changes in "preferred" methods for application configuration. 1) XML namespaces and 2) increased use of annotations.
1) Going back to the AOP example, what used to take around 50-80 lines of XML in Spring < 2.0 and earlier can now be done in roughly 1/3 - 1/4 the config by using the <aop:...> <tx:...> or <scheduling:...> namespaces. You can still do things the old, verbose way, but now there's no reason to do so unless your either reinventing the wheel or have highly specialized needs that require low-level customization.
2) Spring has gone through their framework and found so-called "sweet spots" where XML-based config simply doesn't make sense. URL mapping, AOP pointcuts, autowiring or init methods, transactional behavior, all become much easier to configure as you no longer need swaths of XML to do something that a simple annotation can do (@Transactional anyone?). And inasmuch as there exists a standard Java annotation or JSR which specifies the same thing, they support that (following their "light weight framework" mantra).
A particular note on the parent's mention of PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer: I extended that configurer a couple years ago for our team such that it dynamically loads different sets of properties depending on the environment it is running on (defined by an environment variable). We pull nearly everything out into those properties files (app variables, logging config, profiling, etc) such that a single WAR file can be deployed on any of our environments w/o the need for any post-deploy reconfiguration.
As for DB config, that's the job of the servlet container. By using JNDI binding, there's no need for the application to worry about DB config at all (why would you want your production creds in a build anyways).
As for the web.xml in particular, most web.xml's I've seen for applications that are built by developers who understand the Spring framework (again > 2.0) are very thin. They pretty much just point to DispatcherServlet and URL config inside Spring (again minimized by using URL mapping annotations) take care of the rest. No need for servlet filters since Spring request interceptors do the same thing and in a much more flexible way. This is very much in-line with most frameworks which redirect all requests to a single entry point inside the framework (ie: wordpress, rails, cakephp, etc.).
Bottom line, be careful when you make/see the "Spring requires loads of XML config" argument. It usually comes from those whose idea of Spring is several years old.
We use OpenDNS to prevent accidental stumbling on material we do not want them to view. Furthermore, we limit video game time to 1 hr a day and TV/movie time to 1-2 hr a day. They have to use their imagination to be entertained the other hours of the day (coloring, playing, outside time, etc.).
Half the battle with weight is realizing that dieting isn't something that is prescribed to be applied only for the duration while you're obese. Most people (often myself included) hear the word diet and immediately think of it as being something of a temporary nature. "Oh, I'm currently on a diet." "I need to diet for X." The cultural definition of "dieting" is, well, wrong. The word diet comes from the Greek word diaita which means "a way of life" or "a way of living".
Food dieting must be permanent, or else it is doomed to failure as soon as it is believed to be no longer necessary. The problem comes in by the fact that, due to the cultural misnomer of "dieting", diets are used and advertised as a temporary fix. "Diet for X period of time, then you'll be fine" and thus are by their nature/design not sustainable. Who can eat Jenny Craig food for the rest of their life (diaita)?
What is needed, and what doctors/scientists are realizing, is that the obesity epidemic requires an entirely different relationship with food for the rest of your life. You have to change your relationship with food in a way that is still enjoyable to you for it to be sustainable and healthy.
For my house, this means things like the following: * Meals themselves are balanced. Less meat, decent-sized portions, more greens, etc. * Junk food (chips, cookies, ice cream, soda, snacks, etc.) are treated as luxury items. We never go to the store and allow ourselves to say, "Oh, we're out of [JUNK_FOOD_ITEM]. Let's get some more." Instead was ask, "When was the last time we had X. It's been a while, so let's get some." * We eat when we're hungry. In between meal snacks are at a minimum. And for our kids, we enforce the, "Well, if you're hungry you should have eaten more during the previous meal. You'll have to wait for the next meal."
There's a lot of good research in the last few years around obesity as we're understanding brains and genetics more that shows that it is better treated as an addiction rather than a disease (google David Kessler; former FDA commisioner).
Hmmmm.... installing Linux on my shiny new MacBook Pro that work gave is starting to become more and more attractive.
I agree with a lot of others on this. My group (at a fortune 500 company) has recently started allowing engineers to use Macs and many have chosen to do so. Many other groups in our company have been opting for macs as well.
It's disappointing to see Apple hyper focus on shiny gizmos. One risk they are taking is that the cloud computing revolution hasn't fully panned out yet. If they have all of their eggs in one basket with the mobile devices and some killer apps in the cloud come out that eat into that market share somehow, then they'll be screwed.
However, a more likely scenario is that Apple has been enjoying a lead in the gizmo arena because they've been the first to do it "right" from the consumer's point of view. Unless they can keep innovating to keep ahead of the market catching up with them so that they are viewed is "The" device, they risk losing their market share to the ubiquity of other high-quality devices. Which is why they are so adamant about things like exclusivity and closed platforms.
Toddler Keys worked great for my kids. It locks down your machine (including CD ROM drives and power button) with a password which you can optionally display in one of the corners so adults don't have to remember what the password is. You then point it at a directory full of images and another directory of sounds. Every time a key is hit it displays a random image and plays a random sound. It's fun if you point it at family photos as you can see your toddler begin to recognize family and relatives.
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.
Oh so you mean "Creation Ex Nihilo". So in other words, "Hawking follows complex equations to conclusion that contradicts one of the fundamental axioms of science."
Don't get me wrong, Hawking is brilliant. But it seems, as a lay person, that he has let the equations run away from him on this one.
Of course, it all depends on what one's definition of "nothing" is.
What's this "TV" thing you speak of? Oh, right: the screen for the game consoles!
Exactly. My family has been going on almost 2 years of no live TV (cable or broadcast). Between Netflix (with watch instantly), Hulu, various network websites with full-episodes, public libraries, etc. I don't see much reason to pay for cable or even a DTV receiver.
Case in point, I recently discovered an highly acclaimed anime "5 cm per Second" so I went to my usual resources to watch it. Netflix? Nope. Hulu? Nope. Amazon/Ebay? Way too expensive. Turns out that movie is out of print (it only came out recently too), so it is pretty much a collector's item. So, I searched local libraries and 6 out of the 10 I searched had it. One library card later, I've now LEGITIMATELY WATCHED IT FOR FREE (great movie by the way). I'd forgotten how good a resource the library could be.
Yup, for some of the shows we like that aren't available to stream online we're a season behind. However, they are no less enjoyable watching them when the DVDs come out than when they first aired.
Fortunately, I could care less about watching professional sports (way too many overpaid inane athletes in that arena anyways). So that is a problem I don't have to worry about.
Seriously though, the live/broadcast TV paradigm in the 21st century simply won't have near the same place it has had in the 20th century (if it has any place at all).
The stance they take is if you want 100% support from IT then get the Windows machine. If you get Mac or Linux then you're mostly on your own. They provide tools and configuration settings you can use to get Mac or Linux working on the network (email/calendar/IM/VPN) and have setup an internal wiki/community site for employees to help each other in providing instructions on how to use your Mac or Linux machine.
Our organization gives employees a choice on machine refresh--Windows 7 (and I think XP is still available), Mac OSX, or Linux. I'm seeing an increasing number of MacbookPros being used in the office.
Actually you can do a "no fly" list real-time without sacrificing privacy. All that is involved is the government (TSA) coming up with an algorithm to produce a 1-way hash per person on the no-fly list. Airlines get real-time updates from this list, and run the same algorithm to produce the same 1-way hash for passengers. Those 1-way hashes that match can be reported back to the government w/o the exchange of any personal information. If a match is found you could then send more detailed information to the airline (so local authorities have useful information right away).
I assumed that they were already doing something like this (perhaps not).
many organizations, particularly in the financial services industry, have gotten to the point of assuming that their customers' desktops are compromised
Isn't that a good thing? If I were writing code that interacts with a system outside my control, I would assume the worst case scenario (compromised, packet sniffers, rootkits, etc.) and code as much as I can to be resilient to that.
Have financial institutions been running thus far under the assumption that their customer's computers aren't compromised?
I've been on McAfee's side for this whole thing. They have to get some props for being the first AV vendor to come right out and admit that Windows itself IS the virus.
However, apparently the general population doesn't agree.
What if the level of complexity and resources required in order to become a space-faring society are such that any civilization that is able to achieve this must first be able to overcome their own self-destructive tendencies? In other words, on the tech-advancement tree, world-peace is a prerequisite for space travel. Any civilization that obtained space-travel technology that still has self-destructive tendencies may just end up destroying themselves with it. This is somewhat similar to Carl Sagan's Cosmos chapter where he discusses how a civilization must overcome their moral/technological adolescence in order to break through a certain scientific/technological glass ceiling and become a part of a larger galactic society.
Slashdot Mirror
My wife and I payed good money to get out of an AT&T contract several years ago and went over to T-mobile. We can't seem to get away from that company.
Rate hikes for everyone in 3... 2... 1...
IEEE 802.11q... 'nuff said.
Wireless-Q has the defect that you can't broadcast your SSID since that your require devices to observe the signal first first before connecting, which would result in a quantum paradox.
Outbound port 25 suddenly stopped working for us at our home office. My wife has a CRM system that she runs in our home office and it frequently sends emails to her clients (appointment reminders, appointment follow-ups, promotions, etc.). I configured that CRM system to use our mail server setup on a VPS in a data center with Server Axis. After I figured out that it was Comcast that suddenly shut down outbound port 25 from our home, all I did was change the incoming SMTP port on our mail server to be 2500 and everything has been fine ever since (something which may not always be a practical option if you have lots of different groups expecting it to be available on port 25).
But yes, make sure you follow best practices for managing a *legitimate* high-traffic mail server:
* Use a static IP
* Have proper abuse@ & postmaster@ addresses
* Setup an SPF record for your domain
* Follow the FTC's CAN-SPAM act (http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business)
Living through your children is the very reason for having your own children, by definition: it's what you do when you pass on your genes.
Dear Mr. Chemistry,
I know in your world the chemical reactions involved in reproduction are all that you see. Combination of chromosomes, DNA replication, mutation, proteins, RNA, etc. These are all well and good, but this species whose DNA your observing developed this little thing called a prefrontal cortex. Since then, this frontal cortex (not merely DNA) has ruled the destiny of this species. After millions of years of this species evolution being heavily influenced by this prefrontal cortex, things like individualism, self-identity, social interaction, personality, culture, etc. have become central to this species.
So I ask that although you must remain focused solely on your duties of executing the chemistry underpinning life, you keep an open mind to the fact that this species is no longer bound entirely by those chemical reactions. Perhaps a viewing of one of their own exploring some of these details would help.
Sincerely,
Mr. Evolution
In short, now that I'm older, the anger has turned into quiet desperation.
That and ulcers and/or depression (citation). No job is worth either of those.
GP and parent both make good points. However, GP perspective is a bit outdated. Spring < 2.0 an earlier was all (mostly) about XML config. You'd have dozens and dozens of lines of XML to do what was ultimately a fairly simple task (ie: quartz jobs or AOP).
Spring 2.0+ (especially 3.0) made two very fundamental changes in "preferred" methods for application configuration. 1) XML namespaces and 2) increased use of annotations.
1) Going back to the AOP example, what used to take around 50-80 lines of XML in Spring < 2.0 and earlier can now be done in roughly 1/3 - 1/4 the config by using the <aop:...> <tx:...> or <scheduling:...> namespaces. You can still do things the old, verbose way, but now there's no reason to do so unless your either reinventing the wheel or have highly specialized needs that require low-level customization.
2) Spring has gone through their framework and found so-called "sweet spots" where XML-based config simply doesn't make sense. URL mapping, AOP pointcuts, autowiring or init methods, transactional behavior, all become much easier to configure as you no longer need swaths of XML to do something that a simple annotation can do (@Transactional anyone?). And inasmuch as there exists a standard Java annotation or JSR which specifies the same thing, they support that (following their "light weight framework" mantra).
A particular note on the parent's mention of PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer: I extended that configurer a couple years ago for our team such that it dynamically loads different sets of properties depending on the environment it is running on (defined by an environment variable). We pull nearly everything out into those properties files (app variables, logging config, profiling, etc) such that a single WAR file can be deployed on any of our environments w/o the need for any post-deploy reconfiguration.
As for DB config, that's the job of the servlet container. By using JNDI binding, there's no need for the application to worry about DB config at all (why would you want your production creds in a build anyways).
As for the web.xml in particular, most web.xml's I've seen for applications that are built by developers who understand the Spring framework (again > 2.0) are very thin. They pretty much just point to DispatcherServlet and URL config inside Spring (again minimized by using URL mapping annotations) take care of the rest. No need for servlet filters since Spring request interceptors do the same thing and in a much more flexible way. This is very much in-line with most frameworks which redirect all requests to a single entry point inside the framework (ie: wordpress, rails, cakephp, etc.).
Bottom line, be careful when you make/see the "Spring requires loads of XML config" argument. It usually comes from those whose idea of Spring is several years old.
And yes, I'm a Spring fanboy. ;-)
* Gcompris
* Childsplay
* TuxPaint
* Celestia
* phun
* starfall.com
* sesame street's site
We use OpenDNS to prevent accidental stumbling on material we do not want them to view. Furthermore, we limit video game time to 1 hr a day and TV/movie time to 1-2 hr a day. They have to use their imagination to be entertained the other hours of the day (coloring, playing, outside time, etc.).
There's a lot of internet rage around HFCS but not a whole lot of solid evidence to support the assertion that it is much worse than sugar.
Wrong. Here you go:
Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain
Half the battle with weight is realizing that dieting isn't something that is prescribed to be applied only for the duration while you're obese. Most people (often myself included) hear the word diet and immediately think of it as being something of a temporary nature. "Oh, I'm currently on a diet." "I need to diet for X." The cultural definition of "dieting" is, well, wrong. The word diet comes from the Greek word diaita which means "a way of life" or "a way of living".
Food dieting must be permanent, or else it is doomed to failure as soon as it is believed to be no longer necessary. The problem comes in by the fact that, due to the cultural misnomer of "dieting", diets are used and advertised as a temporary fix. "Diet for X period of time, then you'll be fine" and thus are by their nature/design not sustainable. Who can eat Jenny Craig food for the rest of their life (diaita)?
What is needed, and what doctors/scientists are realizing, is that the obesity epidemic requires an entirely different relationship with food for the rest of your life. You have to change your relationship with food in a way that is still enjoyable to you for it to be sustainable and healthy.
For my house, this means things like the following:
* Meals themselves are balanced. Less meat, decent-sized portions, more greens, etc.
* Junk food (chips, cookies, ice cream, soda, snacks, etc.) are treated as luxury items. We never go to the store and allow ourselves to say, "Oh, we're out of [JUNK_FOOD_ITEM]. Let's get some more." Instead was ask, "When was the last time we had X. It's been a while, so let's get some."
* We eat when we're hungry. In between meal snacks are at a minimum. And for our kids, we enforce the, "Well, if you're hungry you should have eaten more during the previous meal. You'll have to wait for the next meal."
There's a lot of good research in the last few years around obesity as we're understanding brains and genetics more that shows that it is better treated as an addiction rather than a disease (google David Kessler; former FDA commisioner).
Hmmmm.... installing Linux on my shiny new MacBook Pro that work gave is starting to become more and more attractive.
I agree with a lot of others on this. My group (at a fortune 500 company) has recently started allowing engineers to use Macs and many have chosen to do so. Many other groups in our company have been opting for macs as well.
It's disappointing to see Apple hyper focus on shiny gizmos. One risk they are taking is that the cloud computing revolution hasn't fully panned out yet. If they have all of their eggs in one basket with the mobile devices and some killer apps in the cloud come out that eat into that market share somehow, then they'll be screwed.
However, a more likely scenario is that Apple has been enjoying a lead in the gizmo arena because they've been the first to do it "right" from the consumer's point of view. Unless they can keep innovating to keep ahead of the market catching up with them so that they are viewed is "The" device, they risk losing their market share to the ubiquity of other high-quality devices. Which is why they are so adamant about things like exclusivity and closed platforms.
WHO CARES!!!!????
Every web developer should religiously study OWASP's Top Ten Most Critical Web Application Security Risks and be held accountable to it by their superiors.
Those who work with contractors should especially do this as I've found that contractors tend to have the worst habits when it comes to security.
...and 'Big Data' tools like Hadoop are enabling IT organizations...
...these methods are widely available through Hadoop and other tools...
Oh... also... did I mention HADOOP!!??
Toddler Keys worked great for my kids. It locks down your machine (including CD ROM drives and power button) with a password which you can optionally display in one of the corners so adults don't have to remember what the password is. You then point it at a directory full of images and another directory of sounds. Every time a key is hit it displays a random image and plays a random sound. It's fun if you point it at family photos as you can see your toddler begin to recognize family and relatives.
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.
Oh so you mean "Creation Ex Nihilo". So in other words, "Hawking follows complex equations to conclusion that contradicts one of the fundamental axioms of science."
Don't get me wrong, Hawking is brilliant. But it seems, as a lay person, that he has let the equations run away from him on this one.
Of course, it all depends on what one's definition of "nothing" is.
Ah yes. I ran across a video of these robots in action a while ago.
Looks great!
It's the Seattle public library. I did an area-wide search (selecting the 10 closes libraries) and 6 of the 10 came back as having it.
What's this "TV" thing you speak of? Oh, right: the screen for the game consoles!
Exactly. My family has been going on almost 2 years of no live TV (cable or broadcast). Between Netflix (with watch instantly), Hulu, various network websites with full-episodes, public libraries, etc. I don't see much reason to pay for cable or even a DTV receiver.
Case in point, I recently discovered an highly acclaimed anime "5 cm per Second" so I went to my usual resources to watch it. Netflix? Nope. Hulu? Nope. Amazon/Ebay? Way too expensive. Turns out that movie is out of print (it only came out recently too), so it is pretty much a collector's item. So, I searched local libraries and 6 out of the 10 I searched had it. One library card later, I've now LEGITIMATELY WATCHED IT FOR FREE (great movie by the way). I'd forgotten how good a resource the library could be.
Yup, for some of the shows we like that aren't available to stream online we're a season behind. However, they are no less enjoyable watching them when the DVDs come out than when they first aired.
Fortunately, I could care less about watching professional sports (way too many overpaid inane athletes in that arena anyways). So that is a problem I don't have to worry about.
Seriously though, the live/broadcast TV paradigm in the 21st century simply won't have near the same place it has had in the 20th century (if it has any place at all).
The stance they take is if you want 100% support from IT then get the Windows machine. If you get Mac or Linux then you're mostly on your own. They provide tools and configuration settings you can use to get Mac or Linux working on the network (email/calendar/IM/VPN) and have setup an internal wiki/community site for employees to help each other in providing instructions on how to use your Mac or Linux machine.
is Window 7 the way forward?
Correction, Windows 7 is a way forward.
Our organization gives employees a choice on machine refresh--Windows 7 (and I think XP is still available), Mac OSX, or Linux. I'm seeing an increasing number of MacbookPros being used in the office.
I can almost hear the thundering footsteps of developers rushing to HTML 5. I have to admit, I'm one of them.
And I can see most of them sheepishly dragging their feet back to HTML 4 when they realize that IE's implementation of HTML 5 sucks.
Actually you can do a "no fly" list real-time without sacrificing privacy. All that is involved is the government (TSA) coming up with an algorithm to produce a 1-way hash per person on the no-fly list. Airlines get real-time updates from this list, and run the same algorithm to produce the same 1-way hash for passengers. Those 1-way hashes that match can be reported back to the government w/o the exchange of any personal information. If a match is found you could then send more detailed information to the airline (so local authorities have useful information right away).
I assumed that they were already doing something like this (perhaps not).
many organizations, particularly in the financial services industry, have gotten to the point of assuming that their customers' desktops are compromised
Isn't that a good thing? If I were writing code that interacts with a system outside my control, I would assume the worst case scenario (compromised, packet sniffers, rootkits, etc.) and code as much as I can to be resilient to that.
Have financial institutions been running thus far under the assumption that their customer's computers aren't compromised?
I've been on McAfee's side for this whole thing. They have to get some props for being the first AV vendor to come right out and admit that Windows itself IS the virus.
However, apparently the general population doesn't agree.
Don't worry McAfee, I agree with you.
Here's a thought:
What if the level of complexity and resources required in order to become a space-faring society are such that any civilization that is able to achieve this must first be able to overcome their own self-destructive tendencies? In other words, on the tech-advancement tree, world-peace is a prerequisite for space travel. Any civilization that obtained space-travel technology that still has self-destructive tendencies may just end up destroying themselves with it. This is somewhat similar to Carl Sagan's Cosmos chapter where he discusses how a civilization must overcome their moral/technological adolescence in order to break through a certain scientific/technological glass ceiling and become a part of a larger galactic society.
Discuss...