"It would call for a tiny FAT12 partition on each card sold with an IFS driver for a new file system."
M$ would scoff at the idea and laugh the usb/flash memory card vendors back to the bargaining table and possibly entertain raising the royalities. This is because you're forgetting a critical part to having your plan work: User security restrictions in corporate environments; Windows/Mac OS alike. It wouldn't affect the average home user, but think about the implications for I.T. staff in general who would have to field calls from users complaining that they can't read or write to their shiny new flash device. Sure it's a trivial task, but scale it up to several hundred/thousands of systems scattered around different locations and you have yourself an adventure. You could incorporate a script into the login process, but you'll always have that one VIP user that's not connected on the LAN or through VPN, needs it to ASAP and is bitching up a storm until it's done.
In short, one must look at the bigger picture and assume that no plan/idea is foolproof. Just my $0.02..
While technology has certainly changed and the consequences have increased due to a company's online presence, or an individual for that matter, the hype surrounding Conficker reminds me of the infamous Michelangelo Virus doing its deed on March 6. A quick google search revealed an archived memo sent out at Stanford. I'll paste it here as not to/. their webservers unnecessarily; how kind of me. lol!
-- Stanford memo 03/01/1993 --
"NEWS RELEASE
03/01/93
CONTACT: Stanford University News Service (415) 723-****
Michelangelo virus due to strike again March 6
STANFORD -- Employees who use an IBM PC, PS/2 or compatible computer should be aware that there is a small chance their computers have been infected with an infamous computer virus.
The "Michelangelo" virus, which is an especially destructive strain, may erase parts of a user's hard drive. This can happen every March 6, which is the famous artist's birthday, according to security officials in the Stanford Data Center.
The computer must be turned on sometime March 6 for the virus to do any damage. Since March 6 falls on a Saturday this year, the risk of any damage is relatively low, according to Bill Bauriedel, the Data Center's security chief.
However, he said, it is simply good practice to run an anti-virus program periodically to check for the presence of one or more viruses. Michelangelo is only one of more than 700 identified viruses that can infect a computer.
"Even though you may not have the Michelangelo virus, your computer may be infected with something else," Bauriedel said. "While probably not as dangerous as Michelangelo, these other viruses should be disinfected as well - once disinfected, they can't spread from your machine to someone else's machine."
Staffers and faculty who have a Forsythe account and use Samson can download an antivirus program called F-PROT. For instructions on how to perform the download, issue these two commands:
USE WYL.GB.SEC.FPROT and PRINT.
Users without a Forsythe account can exchange a blank floppy for the antivirus program either at the consulting office on the second floor of Sweet Hall or at the Information Security Office in Spruce Hall, room F19.
For more information on matters of computer security, contact ******* at 723-****.
While slightly OT, I took a moment to seek out possible alternatives but it seems DD-WRT is still the only 3rd-party firmware to solidly support the WRT54G(S) v5 and above. Is any fellow/.'er aware of firmware that would work well with v.5 and above considering that friends and family happen to have purchased the newer/stripped down versions.
Why would you have to rely on a manufacturer's promise?
I'm sure that there a some great coders on/. and elsewhere that could contribute to the Coreboot Project (formerly known as LinuxBIOS) and add a simple function at the BIOS level to run some form of a RAM scrambling function before processing the poweroff command from the O/S.
Bill also owes all of us an apology for Microsoft Bob!! Rememeber that piece of crap?? An utter useless "add-on"! What a monumental waste of coding time.
"Only issue I have is lack of 16 bit support for really old DOS stuff which doesn't bother me."
Obviously you haven't tried getting a handful of printers, all major brands might I add, working under 64-bit Vista! A simple google search will reveal how many users have run into such issues with no solution in sight from the vendors. Of course, sales people won't bother letting buyers know about this issue because their concern is to close the sale. Granted, it's a generalization, but it happens to be the case more often than not. Fast forward to that user going through the initial screens, happy with their new powerful PC, only to find out that their printer which worked just fine with the previous PC is not supported on the shiny, latest and greatest OS.
With regards to Windows, it's safe to say that many apps out there, with the exception of some higher-end games, don't use modern CPUs to their full potential. Just because Windows acknowledges their presence doesn't mean they're being put to good use. Some will be quick to ask why an office suite (for example) needs multi-core support. My answer is why not!? You forked over the extra cash for the dual-core processor and it would be nice if it was actually put to good use.
Running what amounts to a virtual 3D-adapter in software is nothing new of course. Whether it will be done properly is another story. Will the performance ever catch up-to the likes of the GeForce 9800 GTX?? Highly unlikely because of it will cause a great deal of strain between the graphics card market and OS vendors like Microsoft. For the VM world, it would be great as Linux users could FINALLY run Windows-based games in a VM without the need to mess with dual-booting. Not to mention Live CDs could finally run Compiz! It would definitely be a paradigm shift as it would help steer more users towards Linux.
Now THAT would be the year of Linux on the Desktop(tm). Dreaming is still free right?
While an example of good maintenance practices, it doesn't mention the fact that many things of yesteryear were Built-to-last(tm)!! This serves as a perfect example of that.
Unfortunately, that moniker has no place in this disposable society we live in. Users only start realizing the delicate nature of higher capacity drives after it crashes and burns.
Another point that I haven't seen mentioned thus far is the increased difficulty of recovering data from drives approaching and surpassing the terabyte threshold.
One piece of advice: Try not to be a digital pack-rat!!
Not necessarily... You forgot to read the fine print on the "Made in the USA" label with an asterisk.
Made the USA*
[micro font]
With parts from Canada, China and Mexico
Assembled in Mexico with Chinese Labor (or Labour for our British friends)
Overseen by Canadian Overlords via Cisco Telepresence
CDs Pressed in China with Mexican Music courtesy of disgruntled Chinese employee for their bretheren in Mexican Cisco Plant
[/micro font]
The town lays the fiber while the telco lays the pipe the good 'ol American way -- through the courts. All the while, the "people", of which whom this government is supposed to be working for, tells them to take a seat and hire legal assistance. This should motivate people in that town to get off their asses and vote the ass-clowns out of office that are responsible for allowing this sort of nonsense to persist. Many people forget that laws are not cast in stone. If it's not working in the public interest, then CHANGE THEM! And it's not about singing to the choir fellow/.'ers. When will people say enough is enough and tell them to take their company and shove it unless they plan on making life a little better for the average citizen.
Best of luck to us all. At this rate, the likes of Comcast will consolidate many of the regional ISPs and take us all for a ride. To add insult to injury, they'll utter words like 'Thank you for choosing us as your service provider' when they know damn well there are not many major providers left. The hubris nowadays is just incredible.
"In the 1970s, Draper used a toy whistle found in Cap'n Crunch cereal to hack phone lines and make calls. Draper realized the whistle produced the exact tone necessary to signal that an active call on a phone line had endedâ"2600 Hz, to be preciseâ"when in fact it had not, thus allowing the call to continue even after the exchange thought it had ended."
I guess we will never know if that special 2600Hz whistle packed in the cereal box was designed by someone that had knowledge of the phone systems and decided to release it to the masses in the hopes that some kid would figure it out. The rest, as they say, is history.
[Raises a glass to those great inventors who revel in the shadows] Cheers mate!!
"The only people using it, will be those who are stuck with it for legacy reasons, it won't gather any new users."
This reminds me of a project I worked on a long time ago that ended up with the installation of a PDP-11 emulator on modern hardware in order to get things back up and running in the event of a component failure. In other words, it can be done, but there are other ramifications; given that hardware availability to run OS/2 is not at issue.
With that being said, I'm rather certain that some older financial institutions still run their ATMs and a few back-office servers off of OS/2. That's why IBM Won't Open-Source OS/2.
Just my $0.02 on the matter.
[Raises a pint in memory of OS/2] To what could've been... Cheers mate!
Many system vendors have put up eBay stores to compete with the likes of NewEgg.
A quick search for: "gaming computer system" yielded some interesting finds. There was one that caught my attention as it lets you custom build your gaming system right from the bidding page. It had some rather decent selection of system boards (or motherboards for us non-PC [politically correct] older folk) and other components to choose from. Not bad at all as it falls in line with what you're looking for -- one vendor without nailing you with sales tax as they're not in your home state. The 3-year warranty is always a good thing.
Good luck!
Oblig. Disclaimer: I don't have an eBay store or know anyone that does for that matter, so this post is not a shameless plug. I'm also not associated with any computer hardware vendors.
"At home, again, I thought I would probably finding myself switching back to windows to do certain things, but that hasn't been the case (I haven't tried to manage my iPod yet, though)."
Although I haven't tried this solution myself, apparently CrossOver Linux from CodeWeavers supports running iTunes. You might want to give it a try. Of course, make sure to have a good backup of your music and iTunes Library just incase.
As a alternate, you can try gtkPod, which runs natively on Linux. This article gives you a quick rundown on the program's features.
Good luck...
Oblig. disclaimer: I'm not associated in any way with CodeWeavers or the gtkPod project for that matter.
"Moving off Exchange was a little more choppy but we got it done. There was one Gmail gotcha that delayed our roll out for a week but we got past that. Another surprise was after people uploaded their old messages to Gmail was how fast they dumped Outlook. We had planned on supporting Outlook but most everyone switched over to the Gmail interface on their own, a few had already been using Gmail anyway."
Too bad you guys hadn't found out about the PostPath Email Server. According to their site, it's a drop-in replacement for Exchange, integrates with AD and has native support for Outlook. Note: Cisco has recently signed an agreement to acquire PostPath.
Another viable alternative would Zimbra. You can try a demo of their standard or AJAX-based web client without the need to register. While not a drop-in replacement for Exchange, it seems like an interesting solution if you want to keep email servers in-house and get away from Outlook.
Like other posters mentioned, I don't agree with moving your email servers to a third-party; at least in terms of security policies. If you wanted to move the servers off-site for whatever reason, server colocation would be a safer option; IMHO of course. To each their own.
Oblig. Disclaimer: I'm not associated in any way with either PostPath or Zimbra.
A few points that might help scalability and transfer rates:
* Larger spectrum with the ability to use slightly higher power output for increased range. Universities and corporations that require higher output would be designated a section of that spectrum as to not interfere with nearby residential wireless equipment. It is obvious that the current 2.4GHz wireless spectrum is oversaturated with devices. Given that most users leave the wireless channel on the router's default setting (not to mention the security set to none), it is no wonder that many experience connectivity issues, but that's besides the point. Onto the next item...
* Adaptive/Cooperative router software and end-user drivers, which would be especially helpful for load balancing purposes on university campuses and other applications.
Example: Routers setup in WDS mode would update each other (on a wireless sub-channel) on current amount of users, distance from each other using simple calculations, etc. Using that data, the wireless client would be directed to which nearby router to connect to and stay there for the duration if at all possible. Some would say that it would be akin to the way cellphones work. That information would be updated periodically on the client end in the event they move around campus and away from their current AP. Unlike current WDS which requires the wireless channel to be fixed, this next-gen WDS, if you will, would allow for separate channels to mitigate interference between APs. Client software would be provided a list of nearby authorized APs. Preventing rogue APs and other security-related issues is another discussion altogether, but very important for any kind of wireless communications.
* QoS that actually works, especially critical with larger scale deployments. This would obviously require work on both ends, router and wireless client. Give the router the ability to deny connectivity if the client does not have QoS enabled on their end. Or better yet, allow the client to connect and redirect any http request to a page stating that given the fact that QoS is not enabled, they will not be able to continue and subsequently disconnect them. Implement a ban period for repeated connectivity requests without QoS enabled and notify the rest of the APs within their network to simply drop requests from the given MAC address until the ban period expires. Of course, those in the know would change their MAC via software and try again, but as I mentioned earlier, this discussion is security measures aside.
* All of this extra work would not without a price. New multi-core CPUs would need to be employed with efficient embedded software that would load-balance properly and have redundant memory and other equipment for high-availability. Of course, this is in reference to larger deployments like a university and the like. As the desire for constant wireless connectivity continues, maintainers must ensure that their installed equipment can handle minor hardware issues like power supply failures. It would also make their lives easier as they would simply tap into a stash of spare parts, replace the part in question and the end user would be none the wiser. It would be akin to replacing parts on a server. It would ensure that the help center does not receive a flood of calls because their pr0n/torrent stream stopped working. LOL!
Changing the wallpaper is but one of the most important functions a computer can perform!! Right up there is a user waiting to have their screen saver activate and asking people in surrounding cubicles to run over... just to see the little fishies swim around, or flying toasters/toilets if you're still running Win 3.1x with After Dark(tm). To each their own I say!
Wouldn't cops and military personnel also be extremely unhappy as well, based on this?
What makes you think they're not? First responders see some of the worst that human nature is capable of. Same goes for Military personnel, especially those on the front lines. The 'security mindset' changes a person, even if it goes unnoticed. First responders who have children are likely to be over-protective because of their experiences and may be more suspicious of their kids activities. For example, a law enforcement officer who's worked the streets long enough would find it hard to fall for most excuses that a kid may come up with for being late.
Wouldn't people who work in demolitions, tearing down buildings, be very unhappy?
Not necessarily. From what I've seen, demolition crews strive to perfect the art, which keeps them going. I don't believe they would be unhappy as new buildings rise in its place.
Wouldn't this mean that anyone working in a job that had a potential negative impact on others, also be very unhappy? I mean with gas prices what they are, isn't the guy working at the gas station feeling miserable, because people hate paying as much as they are for gas, and he is the front-line representative seeing these reactions?
Quite the opposite. Given the state of the economy, which is a pretty tough for most these days regardless of what the media says, he's happy to have a job. If he has any kind of people skills, which is debatable at most gas stations, he'd make people understand that he's just a pawn in the grand scheme of things. Then again, he might be happy to have a job, but not happy with his station in life; pun intended.
Regardless of people's opinion on this, perhaps we can all agree that "dedication to duty has a price"? [borrowed from a movie quote] Then again, then is/., so that's highly debatable.
Both CAN co-exist. The issue lies in the installer IMHO, which doesn't give the user that much needed choice to further customize the install. This applies to most popular distros, if not all. I'm not trying to troll here, so allow me to explain.
Say you have two desktops setup and one user wants a purist-type environment and the other is game for anything (ie. close-sourced binary drivers, apps, codecs, etc.). All you need is ONE installer CD that gives a user the choice of which kind of system they would like to install. Each choice will install the OS as usual, but even go as far as tailoring the repositories to ensure that the wishes of the users are met.
Although the following is a bit off-topic, it's related to the 'popular' GNU/Linux distros in general. Another pertinent question to be asked during the installation would be if the user is new to GNU/Linux. If so, it would be great to have a nice demo (using Theora perhaps?) to show new users how to use their newly installed OS and explain how the open source community has worked hard to bring a viable alternative to their desktop. It's certainly possible that the lack of such a demo has driven away new users because a LiveCD shows them a familiar looking desktop, but then leaves them with a 'now what?' look on their face. Perhaps the likes of Canonical can take the lead on this and provide a high quality demo on the basics of using Ubuntu, in addition to their other offerings (Kubuntu, etc)? I think that would at least extend the initial 'test-drive' period for new users. Just my $0.02 of course...
Comments, suggestions and rants welcome... Karma's a bitch! LOL!
For those with experience running earlier revisions of Linksys routers, it's known that they are much more stable than the newer and cheaper (component-wise) brethren. While Tomato may be very stable and have a good QoS implementation, it unfortunately shuts out those with Linksys units v5 or newer as described below. Even with it's QoS functionality being questionable at best, at least DD-WRT offers that segment of users a viable choice to using the stock firmware.
Following excerpt on Tomato firmware can be found here:
"This will not work on Linksys WRT54G/GS v5 or newer WRT54G/GS routers."
Actually, I wonder why MS wouldn't release a non-preemptive Windows, just for this purpose. It would be a lot more reliable for some applications.
You mean DOS (or other flavors - ie. FreeDOS, DR DOS, IBM PC DOS, etc.)? Windows was used back then and still is to this day because so-called Project Managers pick a programmer who is knowledgeable enough to code the basic app, but not averse with exception handling and other aspects of coding to create a robust program. All it takes is a company with a reputable electrical engineer to design the hardware interface box and a decent programmer that codes in C to create an app to reliably control the roller coaster mechanism.
In not trying to get bit by vendor (or programmer) lock-in, they sacrifice quality and put us all in jeopardy while claiming that their systems are safe and have gone through extensive QA before being implemented.
Slashdot Mirror
"It would call for a tiny FAT12 partition on each card sold with an IFS driver for a new file system."
M$ would scoff at the idea and laugh the usb/flash memory card vendors back to the bargaining table and possibly entertain raising the royalities. This is because you're forgetting a critical part to having your plan work: User security restrictions in corporate environments; Windows/Mac OS alike. It wouldn't affect the average home user, but think about the implications for I.T. staff in general who would have to field calls from users complaining that they can't read or write to their shiny new flash device. Sure it's a trivial task, but scale it up to several hundred/thousands of systems scattered around different locations and you have yourself an adventure. You could incorporate a script into the login process, but you'll always have that one VIP user that's not connected on the LAN or through VPN, needs it to ASAP and is bitching up a storm until it's done.
In short, one must look at the bigger picture and assume that no plan/idea is foolproof. Just my $0.02..
While technology has certainly changed and the consequences have increased due to a company's online presence, or an individual for that matter, the hype surrounding Conficker reminds me of the infamous Michelangelo Virus doing its deed on March 6. A quick google search revealed an archived memo sent out at Stanford. I'll paste it here as not to /. their webservers unnecessarily; how kind of me. lol!
-- Stanford memo 03/01/1993 --
"NEWS RELEASE
03/01/93
CONTACT: Stanford University News Service (415) 723-****
Michelangelo virus due to strike again March 6
STANFORD -- Employees who use an IBM PC, PS/2 or compatible computer should be aware that there is a small chance their computers have been infected with an infamous computer virus.
The "Michelangelo" virus, which is an especially destructive strain, may erase parts of a user's hard drive. This can happen every March 6, which is the famous artist's birthday, according to security officials in the Stanford Data Center.
The computer must be turned on sometime March 6 for the virus to do any damage. Since March 6 falls on a Saturday this year, the risk of any damage is relatively low, according to Bill Bauriedel, the Data Center's security chief.
However, he said, it is simply good practice to run an anti-virus program periodically to check for the presence of one or more viruses. Michelangelo is only one of more than 700 identified viruses that can infect a computer.
"Even though you may not have the Michelangelo virus, your computer may be infected with something else," Bauriedel said. "While probably not as dangerous as Michelangelo, these other viruses should be disinfected as well - once disinfected, they can't spread from your machine to someone else's machine."
Staffers and faculty who have a Forsythe account and use Samson can download an antivirus program called F-PROT. For instructions on how to perform the download, issue these two commands:
USE WYL.GB.SEC.FPROT and PRINT.
Users without a Forsythe account can exchange a blank floppy for the antivirus program either at the consulting office on the second floor of Sweet Hall or at the Information Security Office in Spruce Hall, room F19.
For more information on matters of computer security, contact ******* at 723-****.
930301Arc3381.html"
While slightly OT, I took a moment to seek out possible alternatives but it seems DD-WRT is still the only 3rd-party firmware to solidly support the WRT54G(S) v5 and above. Is any fellow /.'er aware of firmware that would work well with v.5 and above considering that friends and family happen to have purchased the newer/stripped down versions.
Why would you have to rely on a manufacturer's promise?
/. and elsewhere that could contribute to the Coreboot Project (formerly known as LinuxBIOS) and add a simple function at the BIOS level to run some form of a RAM scrambling function before processing the poweroff command from the O/S.
I'm sure that there a some great coders on
Just my $0.02...
Also, which is more economically efficient - to pay people a marginal amount to sit around (unemployment - which comes out of taxes, remember)
In an effort to correct that bit of misinformation, see: U.S. Unemployment Program
For those that don't have a moment to waste, below is a clip of the wiki entry:
----- Snippet -----
"Unemployment insurance is a federal-state program jointly financed through federal and state employer payroll taxes (federal and state UI taxes)"
Well said...
Bill also owes all of us an apology for Microsoft Bob!! Rememeber that piece of crap?? An utter useless "add-on"! What a monumental waste of coding time.
As the saying goes:
"People only hear what they see"...
I second that!
"Only issue I have is lack of 16 bit support for really old DOS stuff which doesn't bother me."
Obviously you haven't tried getting a handful of printers, all major brands might I add, working under 64-bit Vista! A simple google search will reveal how many users have run into such issues with no solution in sight from the vendors. Of course, sales people won't bother letting buyers know about this issue because their concern is to close the sale. Granted, it's a generalization, but it happens to be the case more often than not. Fast forward to that user going through the initial screens, happy with their new powerful PC, only to find out that their printer which worked just fine with the previous PC is not supported on the shiny, latest and greatest OS.
Complete disappointment...
Perhaps you care to rephrase that statement?
With regards to Windows, it's safe to say that many apps out there, with the exception of some higher-end games, don't use modern CPUs to their full potential. Just because Windows acknowledges their presence doesn't mean they're being put to good use. Some will be quick to ask why an office suite (for example) needs multi-core support. My answer is why not!? You forked over the extra cash for the dual-core processor and it would be nice if it was actually put to good use.
Running what amounts to a virtual 3D-adapter in software is nothing new of course. Whether it will be done properly is another story. Will the performance ever catch up-to the likes of the GeForce 9800 GTX?? Highly unlikely because of it will cause a great deal of strain between the graphics card market and OS vendors like Microsoft. For the VM world, it would be great as Linux users could FINALLY run Windows-based games in a VM without the need to mess with dual-booting. Not to mention Live CDs could finally run Compiz! It would definitely be a paradigm shift as it would help steer more users towards Linux.
Now THAT would be the year of Linux on the Desktop(tm). Dreaming is still free right?
While an example of good maintenance practices, it doesn't mention the fact that many things of yesteryear were Built-to-last(tm)!! This serves as a perfect example of that.
Unfortunately, that moniker has no place in this disposable society we live in. Users only start realizing the delicate nature of higher capacity drives after it crashes and burns.
Another point that I haven't seen mentioned thus far is the increased difficulty of recovering data from drives approaching and surpassing the terabyte threshold.
One piece of advice: Try not to be a digital pack-rat!!
[Fuller] Do to a recent scientific breakthrough on human evolution, it seems we have to do our part and have some offspring!
[Younger woman*] OMG! So you're like some scientist or something!?
[Fuller] Something like that. Back to the matter at hand...
[Younger woman*] I'm willing to go through with it for the sake of science and human evolution, but WTF are those things hanging!?!
[Fuller] Those are just my bucky balls extremely magnified!
* = 18+ of course..
Not necessarily... You forgot to read the fine print on the "Made in the USA" label with an asterisk.
Made the USA*
[micro font]
With parts from Canada, China and Mexico
Assembled in Mexico with Chinese Labor (or Labour for our British friends)
Overseen by Canadian Overlords via Cisco Telepresence
CDs Pressed in China with Mexican Music courtesy of disgruntled Chinese employee for their bretheren in Mexican Cisco Plant
[/micro font]
I disgress...
That would be the Neil and Bob Edition of the product.
The town lays the fiber while the telco lays the pipe the good 'ol American way -- through the courts. All the while, the "people", of which whom this government is supposed to be working for, tells them to take a seat and hire legal assistance. This should motivate people in that town to get off their asses and vote the ass-clowns out of office that are responsible for allowing this sort of nonsense to persist. Many people forget that laws are not cast in stone. If it's not working in the public interest, then CHANGE THEM! And it's not about singing to the choir fellow /.'ers. When will people say enough is enough and tell them to take their company and shove it unless they plan on making life a little better for the average citizen.
Best of luck to us all. At this rate, the likes of Comcast will consolidate many of the regional ISPs and take us all for a ride. To add insult to injury, they'll utter words like 'Thank you for choosing us as your service provider' when they know damn well there are not many major providers left. The hubris nowadays is just incredible.
From TFA:
"In the 1970s, Draper used a toy whistle found in Cap'n Crunch cereal to hack phone lines and make calls. Draper realized the whistle produced the exact tone necessary to signal that an active call on a phone line had endedâ"2600 Hz, to be preciseâ"when in fact it had not, thus allowing the call to continue even after the exchange thought it had ended."
I guess we will never know if that special 2600Hz whistle packed in the cereal box was designed by someone that had knowledge of the phone systems and decided to release it to the masses in the hopes that some kid would figure it out. The rest, as they say, is history.
[Raises a glass to those great inventors who revel in the shadows] Cheers mate!!
"The only people using it, will be those who are stuck with it for legacy reasons, it won't gather any new users."
This reminds me of a project I worked on a long time ago that ended up with the installation of a PDP-11 emulator on modern hardware in order to get things back up and running in the event of a component failure. In other words, it can be done, but there are other ramifications; given that hardware availability to run OS/2 is not at issue.
With that being said, I'm rather certain that some older financial institutions still run their ATMs and a few back-office servers off of OS/2. That's why IBM Won't Open-Source OS/2.
Just my $0.02 on the matter.
[Raises a pint in memory of OS/2] To what could've been... Cheers mate!
Many system vendors have put up eBay stores to compete with the likes of NewEgg.
A quick search for: "gaming computer system" yielded some interesting finds. There was one that caught my attention as it lets you custom build your gaming system right from the bidding page. It had some rather decent selection of system boards (or motherboards for us non-PC [politically correct] older folk) and other components to choose from. Not bad at all as it falls in line with what you're looking for -- one vendor without nailing you with sales tax as they're not in your home state. The 3-year warranty is always a good thing.
Good luck!
Oblig. Disclaimer: I don't have an eBay store or know anyone that does for that matter, so this post is not a shameless plug. I'm also not associated with any computer hardware vendors.
"At home, again, I thought I would probably finding myself switching back to windows to do certain things, but that hasn't been the case (I haven't tried to manage my iPod yet, though)."
Although I haven't tried this solution myself, apparently CrossOver Linux from CodeWeavers supports running iTunes. You might want to give it a try. Of course, make sure to have a good backup of your music and iTunes Library just incase.
As a alternate, you can try gtkPod, which runs natively on Linux. This article gives you a quick rundown on the program's features.
Good luck...
Oblig. disclaimer: I'm not associated in any way with CodeWeavers or the gtkPod project for that matter.
"Moving off Exchange was a little more choppy but we got it done. There was one Gmail gotcha that delayed our roll out for a week but we got past that. Another surprise was after people uploaded their old messages to Gmail was how fast they dumped Outlook. We had planned on supporting Outlook but most everyone switched over to the Gmail interface on their own, a few had already been using Gmail anyway."
Too bad you guys hadn't found out about the PostPath Email Server. According to their site, it's a drop-in replacement for Exchange, integrates with AD and has native support for Outlook. Note: Cisco has recently signed an agreement to acquire PostPath.
Another viable alternative would Zimbra. You can try a demo of their standard or AJAX-based web client without the need to register. While not a drop-in replacement for Exchange, it seems like an interesting solution if you want to keep email servers in-house and get away from Outlook.
Like other posters mentioned, I don't agree with moving your email servers to a third-party; at least in terms of security policies. If you wanted to move the servers off-site for whatever reason, server colocation would be a safer option; IMHO of course. To each their own.
Oblig. Disclaimer: I'm not associated in any way with either PostPath or Zimbra.
A few points that might help scalability and transfer rates:
* Larger spectrum with the ability to use slightly higher power output for increased range. Universities and corporations that require higher output would be designated a section of that spectrum as to not interfere with nearby residential wireless equipment. It is obvious that the current 2.4GHz wireless spectrum is oversaturated with devices. Given that most users leave the wireless channel on the router's default setting (not to mention the security set to none), it is no wonder that many experience connectivity issues, but that's besides the point. Onto the next item...
* Adaptive/Cooperative router software and end-user drivers, which would be especially helpful for load balancing purposes on university campuses and other applications.
Example: Routers setup in WDS mode would update each other (on a wireless sub-channel) on current amount of users, distance from each other using simple calculations, etc. Using that data, the wireless client would be directed to which nearby router to connect to and stay there for the duration if at all possible. Some would say that it would be akin to the way cellphones work. That information would be updated periodically on the client end in the event they move around campus and away from their current AP. Unlike current WDS which requires the wireless channel to be fixed, this next-gen WDS, if you will, would allow for separate channels to mitigate interference between APs. Client software would be provided a list of nearby authorized APs. Preventing rogue APs and other security-related issues is another discussion altogether, but very important for any kind of wireless communications.
* QoS that actually works, especially critical with larger scale deployments. This would obviously require work on both ends, router and wireless client. Give the router the ability to deny connectivity if the client does not have QoS enabled on their end. Or better yet, allow the client to connect and redirect any http request to a page stating that given the fact that QoS is not enabled, they will not be able to continue and subsequently disconnect them. Implement a ban period for repeated connectivity requests without QoS enabled and notify the rest of the APs within their network to simply drop requests from the given MAC address until the ban period expires. Of course, those in the know would change their MAC via software and try again, but as I mentioned earlier, this discussion is security measures aside.
* All of this extra work would not without a price. New multi-core CPUs would need to be employed with efficient embedded software that would load-balance properly and have redundant memory and other equipment for high-availability. Of course, this is in reference to larger deployments like a university and the like. As the desire for constant wireless connectivity continues, maintainers must ensure that their installed equipment can handle minor hardware issues like power supply failures. It would also make their lives easier as they would simply tap into a stash of spare parts, replace the part in question and the end user would be none the wiser. It would be akin to replacing parts on a server. It would ensure that the help center does not receive a flood of calls because their pr0n/torrent stream stopped working. LOL!
- Just my $0.02 -
Comments/rants welcome...
On the contrary my fellow /.'er...
Changing the wallpaper is but one of the most important functions a computer can perform!! Right up there is a user waiting to have their screen saver activate and asking people in surrounding cubicles to run over... just to see the little fishies swim around, or flying toasters/toilets if you're still running Win 3.1x with After Dark(tm). To each their own I say!
Wouldn't cops and military personnel also be extremely unhappy as well, based on this?
/., so that's highly debatable.
What makes you think they're not? First responders see some of the worst that human nature is capable of. Same goes for Military personnel, especially those on the front lines. The 'security mindset' changes a person, even if it goes unnoticed. First responders who have children are likely to be over-protective because of their experiences and may be more suspicious of their kids activities. For example, a law enforcement officer who's worked the streets long enough would find it hard to fall for most excuses that a kid may come up with for being late.
Wouldn't people who work in demolitions, tearing down buildings, be very unhappy?
Not necessarily. From what I've seen, demolition crews strive to perfect the art, which keeps them going. I don't believe they would be unhappy as new buildings rise in its place.
Wouldn't this mean that anyone working in a job that had a potential negative impact on others, also be very unhappy? I mean with gas prices what they are, isn't the guy working at the gas station feeling miserable, because people hate paying as much as they are for gas, and he is the front-line representative seeing these reactions?
Quite the opposite. Given the state of the economy, which is a pretty tough for most these days regardless of what the media says, he's happy to have a job. If he has any kind of people skills, which is debatable at most gas stations, he'd make people understand that he's just a pawn in the grand scheme of things. Then again, he might be happy to have a job, but not happy with his station in life; pun intended.
Regardless of people's opinion on this, perhaps we can all agree that "dedication to duty has a price"? [borrowed from a movie quote] Then again, then is
Both CAN co-exist. The issue lies in the installer IMHO, which doesn't give the user that much needed choice to further customize the install. This applies to most popular distros, if not all. I'm not trying to troll here, so allow me to explain.
Say you have two desktops setup and one user wants a purist-type environment and the other is game for anything (ie. close-sourced binary drivers, apps, codecs, etc.). All you need is ONE installer CD that gives a user the choice of which kind of system they would like to install. Each choice will install the OS as usual, but even go as far as tailoring the repositories to ensure that the wishes of the users are met.
Although the following is a bit off-topic, it's related to the 'popular' GNU/Linux distros in general. Another pertinent question to be asked during the installation would be if the user is new to GNU/Linux. If so, it would be great to have a nice demo (using Theora perhaps?) to show new users how to use their newly installed OS and explain how the open source community has worked hard to bring a viable alternative to their desktop. It's certainly possible that the lack of such a demo has driven away new users because a LiveCD shows them a familiar looking desktop, but then leaves them with a 'now what?' look on their face. Perhaps the likes of Canonical can take the lead on this and provide a high quality demo on the basics of using Ubuntu, in addition to their other offerings (Kubuntu, etc)? I think that would at least extend the initial 'test-drive' period for new users. Just my $0.02 of course...
Comments, suggestions and rants welcome... Karma's a bitch! LOL!
For those with experience running earlier revisions of Linksys routers, it's known that they are much more stable than the newer and cheaper (component-wise) brethren. While Tomato may be very stable and have a good QoS implementation, it unfortunately shuts out those with Linksys units v5 or newer as described below. Even with it's QoS functionality being questionable at best, at least DD-WRT offers that segment of users a viable choice to using the stock firmware.
Following excerpt on Tomato firmware can be found here:
"This will not work on Linksys WRT54G/GS v5 or newer WRT54G/GS routers."
Actually, I wonder why MS wouldn't release a non-preemptive Windows, just for this purpose. It would be a lot more reliable for some applications.
You mean DOS (or other flavors - ie. FreeDOS, DR DOS, IBM PC DOS, etc.)? Windows was used back then and still is to this day because so-called Project Managers pick a programmer who is knowledgeable enough to code the basic app, but not averse with exception handling and other aspects of coding to create a robust program. All it takes is a company with a reputable electrical engineer to design the hardware interface box and a decent programmer that codes in C to create an app to reliably control the roller coaster mechanism.
In not trying to get bit by vendor (or programmer) lock-in, they sacrifice quality and put us all in jeopardy while claiming that their systems are safe and have gone through extensive QA before being implemented.
So it goes... Implement first, plan later!