What these politicians (or techno-morons if you'd like) don't understand is that we, as ISP customers, are already being charged. This is because we pay a monthly SERVICE FEE (including several Federal and Local taxes) that gives us access to communicate over the internet, regardless of the content and potential end-use of said content.
They're simply trying to equate EMAIL to SNAIL MAIL, in which you get charged on a per item basis. However, unlike snail mail, no ADDITIONAL equipment or human resources are necessary (ie. truck drivers, fuel, etc. in the case of snail mail) to deliver email.
Just another way to squeeze more taxes out of the working stiff. People complain about Canada's high tax rate (approx. 40-50%), but they haven't bothered to take into account how much taxes Americans pay outside of Federal Income taxes. I'm sure it's up there as well, but we don't have anything to show for it (not even universal BASIC health care.) Granted, that's another topic altogether, but it had to be thrown in there.
Please save your "Love it or Leave it!" shit speech, because if that were the case, our forefathers would've gone somewhere else to establish our "Colony".
Good luck to us all... Interesting times are definitely ahead of us!!!
Also observe that Office 2007 isn't affected. Obviously MS is doing something right in the next generation of their products.
While that may be the case, users will **HAVE TO PAY** for this "next generation" product and implied protection against such attacks.
Obviously, the days of opening up a document without the spectre of having a system wide issue are long gone! What a shame...
Incase anybody's interested, the prices are as follows:
Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 New! $679/$539 Microsoft Office Professional 2007 $499/$329 Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 $449/$279 Microsoft Office Standard 2007 $399/$239 Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 $149/NA
Thanks for taking the time out to field questions from the/. crowd.
1. What is Mozilla's direction with regards to implementing out-of-the-box email security with Thunderbird? Granted, there are extensions like Enigmail that add the functionality after the fact. However, the average user may not be aware of such an extension, or have the knowledge to use it. Perhaps your company could work closely with the folks at GnuPG to include such a functionality into Thunderbird (along with a friendly UI for the initial setup process) and offer secure email to the masses? In doing so, the end user would also have a trusted source for receiving GnuPG updates (only to the extent of Thunderbird functionality of course) by way of automatic updates.
2. While Firefox has come a long way, there are still some issues with rendering certain web pages that use style sheets. While it is mainly due to the use of non-standard web publishing practices, one problematic page load of a website may be enough to deter a newcomer to Firefox. What is your company doing to address such issues?
3. One of the more widely discussed issues with Firefox has been memory leaks. Whatever the cause, this has also been a deterrent for new users, and thereby affected market share. In this recent/. article titled "Nine Reasons to Skip Firefox 2.0", TFA states "a growing number of users are reporting bugs, widening memory leaks, unexpected instability, poor compatibility, and an overall experience that is inferior to that offered by prior versions of the browser." While there's no doubt that your company has worked hard to bring 2.0 to fruition, what is your company's response to such a backlash? And will such a response prompt a maintenance release to address such issues?
While slightly off-topic, the only way to switch between two OS' in a non-virtualized way from a simple keystroke (or three) is to use a KVM on two systems. Period!!
Most of you by now have heard one of management's favorite phrases: "root cause"
For those fortunate enough not to have heard it a billion times, here is a wiki page to fill you in.
Lucky for me, I've only had to hear this during some conference calls or when the shit hits the fan on a production system, which forces management to go into damage control mode until the smoke clears (ie. We are doing our best to determine the root cause of why the server spontaneously combusted. LMAO!!)
How many poor/.'er souls out there hear this phrase being used for than a few times a week!?
May you one day have the power to Jedi Mind Trick(tm) these morons into being upfront with their employees!! muhahahaha!
Operators are standing by for your Death Star Powered(tm) replies...
This project was started a while back to support the ZyDAS ZD1211 chipset in Linux. As it states on the site, the code was originally donated by ZyDAS. Sometime last year, I managed to contact their tech support and request another kind gesture to the open source community. A few emails later, they released an update to their original code. If I'm not mistaken, the version at the project's website has incorporated the improvements made in the company's updated code. The ZD1211 project also has a list of USB adapters that carry the ZD1211 chipset.
After checking out the project's website, check out the vendor's page as they have been keeping up with their pledge of helping out the open source community by releasing updated drivers. As a bonus, they have also released an updated **WPA Supplicant**. Enjoy fellow/.'ers!!
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with ZyDAS. I just believe it is commendable that a company responded to a request to support the open source community and is actively doing so by publishing updated drivers.
While it's great that OSS groupware apps are maturing at a steady pace, I don't think there's enough focus on a given project to ultimately give Exchange a run for it's Money (pun intended.) Keep in mind that corporations of any size need to have confidence that there is a support team waiting in the wings incase their mail server throws a fit.
Comments that belittle other OSS projects only serve to give big companies more FUD ammunition. Quite frankly, I hope that a group of coders out there will band together and take the best and most stable features from the lot of OSS groupware projects out there, test it and release it.
IMHO, the goal at first should be to target the SMB (small-to-medium business) market. Converting a good chunk of this market would certainly raise some eyebrows. Down the line, it will help in converting bigger corporations as there would be a track record of solid performance from real companies and not some benchmarks simulating a production environment. Try to make it scalable and modular, so SMB's could install a simple setup of mail+calendar+webclient(?), while larger corporations could add modules as needed. Make sure to include a solid implementation of crypto, by way of GnuPG/OpenSSL/etc.
And finally... collaborate with other projects to roll a LiveCD of your favorite server distro that will include a pre-configured mail+calendar+webclient(?) installation. Demo the hell out of it and distribute professional quality CD's at Linux expos and the like.
Perhaps a Slashdot Interview with Tim Berners-Lee (Director of the W3C) would be in order?
After all, "One of W3C's primary goals is to make these benefits available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability." Quote came from this page.
To that end, a web designer (especially that of a company) should be encouraged to comply with standards put forth by an organization like the W3C. A compliance program (logo based?) should be initiated which would recognize sites that are accessible and fully functional from any modern platform. A check and balance approach, by way of complaint forms (or something along those lines), would be ideal to keep sites from straying after being awarded the logo. A major campaign to distribute open-source/W3C compliant web design tools would be encouraged. An online workshop could be put forth to help web admins during the transition.
Wishful thinking? Perhaps. But I think interviewing the director of the W3C and having the response widely publicized on the 'net would definitely garner some attention.
Competition in the wireless sector is fine as it spurs innovation and leads to creative hacks such as the cantenna (and not to mention, endless fun for/.'ers war drivin' their city looking for unsecured AP's.) But in the end, it's about boosting profitability! This is because this latest offering, for better or worse, will eventually make its way to your local retailer as the "must have" product in wireless computing. The ensuing hype will be directly targeted at the average computer using public who marvels at the latest buzz words, and because of heavy marketing, somehow feel the need to upgrade their "out-dated" equipment.
In reality, 802.11b serves up more than enough bandwidth for the average "connected" home with a desktop and laptop (or two in some cases.) That's even taking into account protocol overhead. Granted, it shares the 2.4GHz spectrum with cordless phones and microwaves, so it cuts off every now and again. But after all, the main use for such equipment is to enable the sharing of a 'net connection. And even if your connection does get cut off momentarily, many apps have an auto-resume feature, so that point is moot. It's not like it's being used to transfer gigs of data between wirelessly connected systems, which is where the move from 802.11b to 802.11g would make sense. And as long as the equipment is upgradable to support newer security standards (WPA/WPA2) by firmware or driver, there wouldn't be a practical need to purchase new equipment.
* A dialog box will pop-up asking what to do with it
* Verify that Open With reads "Acrobat Reader" (or "AcroExch" in the newer versions of Acrobat Reader)
* Check "Do this automatically..." -> Click OK
PDF files will now spawn Acrobat Reader out side of Firefox. This is also helpful on older PC's that slow down to a crawl when opening PDF's within the browser.
When the IE-only sites start to get more complaints about usability from their customers, then you will start to see a steady stream of corporate support for Firefox.
IMHO, the statement should read:
When the IE-only sites hire real web admins that conform to W3C standards and re-design their sites accordingly, Firefox will render their content without issue.
Also, what is needed is a Mozilla Foundation backed OSS web page design software (if it hasn't been already(?)) that will lure web admins away from MS Frontpage.
The classification of his investment is a matter of semantics, plain and simple. Since Dell, the individual and not the company is making the investment, the company's board of directors and other executives can down play the move. This helps to keep Microsoft at bay, as indicated above.
While I've never worked for Dell, contractor or otherwise, it's no secret that there are quite a few employees that like Red Hat and have been pushing it to the execs for quite some time. This is what lead the company to include it in their server products in the first place.
The timing of the investment is interesting because Red Hat has beaten street estimates due to a rise in subscriptions (found in this CNET article.) This must have the Red Hat development team jumping for joy. Dell's involvement will only drive them to introduce innovative technologies to both RHEL and Red Hat Desktop.
What I believe will happen in the not too distant future is that Dell (the company) will:
* Ante up and start promoting Red Hat based servers more than they have done in the past. While it may piss off MS, they'll respond, albeit gently, it's just business and keep going.
* Create a sales bundle for small to medium businesses that will include an RHEL server and x amount of desktops loaded with Red Hat Desktop. All this with a migration team waiting in the wings to help the company through the initial learning curve.
* Similar sales bundle for larger corporations, including clustering services and SAN related products.
and finally...
* Further collaborate with Red Hat to offer special pricing on multi-tiered support packages for Dell customers switching from Windows based systems. Since Dell already offers Linux training services and the like, it would basically be a strengthening of its partnership.
Only time will tell! We'll revisit the issue in a few months as I'm sure it will garner more attention when Dell (the company) makes a move.
Here's a practical way (IMHO of course) for end-users and corporations alike to embrace OO, while maintaining MS Office compatibility, staying on MS' good side by not pirating their Office Suite and saving money in the process.
Note: Read MS' EULA just to make sure, but I don't think corporations would have any licensing issues using these viewers.
Use OpenOffice with its default formats and export to DOC/XLS/PPS-PPT when necessary.
Download the following MS viewers for testing exported versions of OO documents/spreadsheets/presentations before distributing them, or simply viewing a DOC/PPS/XLS file that is not importing correctly in OO:
> * RPC (Remote Procedure Call) and Remote Administration tools implemented on end user machines (If I'm not mistaken, Macs carry these features as well.)
Yes, Macs do have those features. But they are turned off by default. You need an admin's password to turn them on. There are Remote Apple Events, which are also turned off by default.
I made the reference in case some readers weren't aware of it. Such services being disabled by default provides a more secure OS out-of-the-box, especially when it comes to the average user.
You're thinking of Remote Desktop or something, right? Which requires the (rather expensive) software to connect to if the computer is set to allow the connections.
The reference M$ was just that -- an old gag to get a chuckle out of fellow/. readers. }:)
As for "The rest is history" comment -- I debated whether or not to include it because you do have a point. But then I said, what the hell!! Someone will catch on and reply to it. Case in point!:)
While gathering such statistical data keeps someone employed and quite busy at that, it doesn't help to remedy the situation.
Take for example the rise of free email services (ie. Hotmail, Yahoo!, etc) some years back: They were known to sell off email address in order to cover some operating costs. This was confirmed by researchers who created accounts on various systems (not limited to Hotmail or Yahoo!), and didn't disclose their address to anyone. Several weeks later, SPAM started appearing in their Inboxes. The rest is history...
Other causes:
* Bots/Spiders relentlessly sifting through vast amount of web pages and usenet archives for the simple purpose of harvesting and processing fresh email addresses.
* ID10T errors on the user side as they love to click on attachments they have no clue about.
* Users who participate in chain letters, as anyone's system who is compromised along the way can reveal their email address.
* Poorly configured mail servers who respond to requests for mailing lists.
* Consumers who volunteer their email address to telemarketers, store give-a-way programs, etc. That information is then sold off of course, and voila, more SPAM. Then they have the nerve to ask, why am I getting so much SPAM??!! Bunch of morons!!
With regards to worms and other system exploits:
* Piss poor implementations of TCP/IP (in the case of Windows)
* Weak firewall configurations or none at all (Windows XP's firewall is a joke as it trusts all outgoing connections. Therefore, once the worm has taken hold, it's free to do as it pleases)
* RPC (Remote Procedure Call) and Remote Administration tools implemented on end user machines (If I'm not mistaken, Macs carry these features as well.) This should only be implemented on corporate installations or the like. Since the average end user simply browses the web, checks email and logs onto their favorite IM program, such RPC capabilities should be an opt-in deal. Clients such as FTP and Telnet will still be available, but anything running as a server would be optional, and subject to a two-step authentication before allowing it to listen in on it's given port.
* The wide-spread use of P2P programs with embedded spyware/etc. The user infected by the use of such programs is at fault for this one.
* Unsecured wireless installation in homes. This is a growing concern as such connections are being used to launch DDoS attacks and serve as SPAM gateways, among other things.
(Note: Those using such connections to log on to/. are exempt of course.)
and finally...
* CraptiveX (or ActiveX[tm] for those M$ folks out there) - This so-called technology speaks for itself. Oh.. I'm sorry!! It's inherent lack of security is a FEATURE, not a bug.
With the advent and subsequent improvements of LiveCD distros, it should be relatively painless for the average/.'er to:
* Create a multi-session CD/DVD with your favorite Linux LiveCD distro (or roll your own and create an ISO for future use)
and
* Backup email files to said CD/DVD
(I suggest a set of re-writable media of good quality to play it safe.)
Further suggestions:
1. It would be advisable to split your archives (ie. Mail2004, etc.), especially if you plan to retain a sizeable amount of mail.
2. Convert archives from older mail clients before creating backup, or use a newer mail client that can read the old files with ease.
the way software companies distributed their apps. Before the 'net took root, a fledgling coder or graphic artist would have to rely on BBS' to provide programs such as C++, Photoshop and other utils to gain some experience. Keep in mind that it would take a loooong time to get them because of slow ass modems. The reason the average kid would looked towards BBS' to supply such programs was because they were too damn expensive!! Granted, the argument of a high sticker price would never hold water in court, but that's the way things were. Money was tight, and as many have stated -- it was exciting.
The emmergence of ever faster modems and high-speed lines such as DSL didn't go unnoticed by software makers. They quickly noticed that the impact of pirated warez from a BBS was child's play compared to the global reach of the 'net. FTP sites and IRC channels spread like wildfire and the companies watched helplessly. That's until the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) took hold in 1998. This would be in addition to the enacting of the "No Electronic Theft" Act of 1997, which was designed to close a loophole that let pirates distributing warez off the hook as long as they didn't profit from their actions.
To the original point: Good or bad, pirates DID change the way software manufacturers distributed their apps. The advent of "Trialware" gave the average user a chance to try the product before they forked over good money to buy it.
In today's world, the quality of OSS [Open Source Software] is improving -- sometimes in leaps and bounds. This offers a means of using very functional software without the need to look over your shoulder fearing the men in black would knock down your door any minute with a search warrant from a secret council. The kids of today have it so much easier!!
anything that it can't decode in real-time (or in the future via archives) for any given use.
As for the suggestion to use UU en/decode or other binary-to-text converters: It's potential use was most probably thought of, which in turn would prompt the creation of a script that would scan through and moderate (or flag for review by IT personnel) those messages which contained headers for programs such as UUencode, PGP, etc.
Like every system, there will always be ways around its security measures. However, there should be no reason why the terminals being used by the soldiers can't be kept free of spyware, keyloggers, and the like (ie. re-imaging workstations at the end of the day.) Either way, the military brass will still have access to the information being sent by soldiers, but would severely limit access to information (and thereby its abuse) by those outside of the group charged with running the system.
God bless the men and women of the United States Armed Forces!!
Earlier this year, there was a conference (Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association or CTIA) which featured a test of the QChat(tm) PTT system. Spear-headed by Nextel, Qualcomm, Kyocera Wireless and Lucent (who happens to be at the core of Sprint's infrastructure), the technology promises cross-platform support. You can read about it here
Given that Qualcomm's Qchat(tm) system is based on CDMA technology (used by Sprint), and is compatible with NexTel's iDEN(tm) network, this should offer some hope to those worried about being forced to part with their current phones. Of course, that remains to be seen. One can only hope for the best!
As with any major merger, one of the keys to success lie in the transition team. All the technology in the world won't help if the decision makers are a bunch of egotistical maniacs, hell-bent on implementing "their" vision (no pun intended on the Sprint moniker) of the direction the combined companies should take. All the while, the customer would be left to suffer at the hands of a lousy tech support staff and billing system from hell (both companies suffer from this.)
I think the implementation of the following features would give rival companies a run for their money:
* Hybrid version of Vision(tm)/NexTel Web that would be cross-platform compatible.
* Cross-platform SMS support
* Unlimited incoming call plans (NexTel)
* Unlimited Mobile-to-Mobile (or PCS-to-PCS from Sprint)
* Unlimited PTT (offered by both - hopefully inter-connected via QChat)
* Proper implementation and use of FOTA (Firmware Over The Air) enabled phones to offer upgrades without the need to visit a local store. Newer Sanyo and Samsung phones offer this feature. I believe many Motorola phones have this capability. If not, a small J2ME program should be written to have the firmware downloaded and only run after the checksum is verified. This would eliminate the worry of a lost signal causing damage to the phone. I don't know the details of the FOTA specs used in Samsung/Sanyo phones, but a similar operation should take place as well.
* New feature MUST: Tech support and billing system that doesn't screw over the customer and/or give them the run around!
Slashdot Mirror
What these politicians (or techno-morons if you'd like) don't understand is that we, as ISP customers, are already being charged. This is because we pay a monthly SERVICE FEE (including several Federal and Local taxes) that gives us access to communicate over the internet, regardless of the content and potential end-use of said content.
They're simply trying to equate EMAIL to SNAIL MAIL, in which you get charged on a per item basis. However, unlike snail mail, no ADDITIONAL equipment or human resources are necessary (ie. truck drivers, fuel, etc. in the case of snail mail) to deliver email.
Just another way to squeeze more taxes out of the working stiff. People complain about Canada's high tax rate (approx. 40-50%), but they haven't bothered to take into account how much taxes Americans pay outside of Federal Income taxes. I'm sure it's up there as well, but we don't have anything to show for it (not even universal BASIC health care.) Granted, that's another topic altogether, but it had to be thrown in there.
Please save your "Love it or Leave it!" shit speech, because if that were the case, our forefathers would've gone somewhere else to establish our "Colony". Good luck to us all... Interesting times are definitely ahead of us!!!
Also observe that Office 2007 isn't affected. Obviously MS is doing something right in the next generation of their products.
While that may be the case, users will **HAVE TO PAY** for this "next generation" product and implied protection against such attacks.
Obviously, the days of opening up a document without the spectre of having a system wide issue are long gone! What a shame...
Incase anybody's interested, the prices are as follows:
Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 New! $679/$539
Microsoft Office Professional 2007 $499/$329
Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 $449/$279
Microsoft Office Standard 2007 $399/$239
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 $149/NA
[Source]
Good afternoon Mr. Beard,
/. crowd.
/. article titled "Nine Reasons to Skip Firefox 2.0", TFA states "a growing number of users are reporting bugs, widening memory leaks, unexpected instability, poor compatibility, and an overall experience that is inferior to that offered by prior versions of the browser." While there's no doubt that your company has worked hard to bring 2.0 to fruition, what is your company's response to such a backlash? And will such a response prompt a maintenance release to address such issues?
Thanks for taking the time out to field questions from the
1. What is Mozilla's direction with regards to implementing out-of-the-box email security with Thunderbird? Granted, there are extensions like Enigmail that add the functionality after the fact. However, the average user may not be aware of such an extension, or have the knowledge to use it. Perhaps your company could work closely with the folks at GnuPG to include such a functionality into Thunderbird (along with a friendly UI for the initial setup process) and offer secure email to the masses? In doing so, the end user would also have a trusted source for receiving GnuPG updates (only to the extent of Thunderbird functionality of course) by way of automatic updates.
2. While Firefox has come a long way, there are still some issues with rendering certain web pages that use style sheets. While it is mainly due to the use of non-standard web publishing practices, one problematic page load of a website may be enough to deter a newcomer to Firefox. What is your company doing to address such issues?
3. One of the more widely discussed issues with Firefox has been memory leaks. Whatever the cause, this has also been a deterrent for new users, and thereby affected market share. In this recent
Thanks again for your time!
While slightly off-topic, the only way to switch between two OS' in a non-virtualized way from a simple keystroke (or three) is to use a KVM on two systems. Period!!
Roll that up and smoke it anyway you want!
Most of you by now have heard one of management's favorite phrases: "root cause"
/.'er souls out there hear this phrase being used for than a few times a week!?
For those fortunate enough not to have heard it a billion times, here is a wiki page to fill you in.
Lucky for me, I've only had to hear this during some conference calls or when the shit hits the fan on a production system, which forces management to go into damage control mode until the smoke clears (ie. We are doing our best to determine the root cause of why the server spontaneously combusted. LMAO!!)
How many poor
May you one day have the power to Jedi Mind Trick(tm) these morons into being upfront with their employees!! muhahahaha!
Operators are standing by for your Death Star Powered(tm) replies...
Minor correction:
"Before you throwing in the towel"
Should read:
"Before you throw in the towel"
Also, the project still has a page at Sourceforge. It's at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/zd1211
Before you throwing in the towel, check out the following website:
/.'ers!!
s p
http://zd1211.ath.cx/
(It used to be hosted at http://zd1211.sourceforge.net/ before moving to this new site.)
This project was started a while back to support the ZyDAS ZD1211 chipset in Linux. As it states on the site, the code was originally donated by ZyDAS. Sometime last year, I managed to contact their tech support and request another kind gesture to the open source community. A few emails later, they released an update to their original code. If I'm not mistaken, the version at the project's website has incorporated the improvements made in the company's updated code. The ZD1211 project also has a list of USB adapters that carry the ZD1211 chipset.
After checking out the project's website, check out the vendor's page as they have been keeping up with their pledge of helping out the open source community by releasing updated drivers. As a bonus, they have also released an updated **WPA Supplicant**. Enjoy fellow
ZyDAS' ZD1211 download page:
http://www.zydas.com.tw/downloads/download-1211.a
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with ZyDAS. I just believe it is commendable that a company responded to a request to support the open source community and is actively doing so by publishing updated drivers.
Good luck to us all!
Or perhaps...
Windows Blurred Vista: RSOD Edition (It's a "feature", not a bug!)
Damn.. That feature's been fixed!
How about...
Windows Myopic Vista: Macular Degeneration Edition
(Morphs over time into Windows 95 featuring a spankin' new version of Bob)
Not to mention that all the space junk, spy satellites, LEO satellites, etc. have completely vanished.
If this were truly be the case, the following article would be considered disinformation.
While it's great that OSS groupware apps are maturing at a steady pace, I don't think there's enough focus on a given project to ultimately give Exchange a run for it's Money (pun intended.) Keep in mind that corporations of any size need to have confidence that there is a support team waiting in the wings incase their mail server throws a fit.
Comments that belittle other OSS projects only serve to give big companies more FUD ammunition. Quite frankly, I hope that a group of coders out there will band together and take the best and most stable features from the lot of OSS groupware projects out there, test it and release it.
IMHO, the goal at first should be to target the SMB (small-to-medium business) market. Converting a good chunk of this market would certainly raise some eyebrows. Down the line, it will help in converting bigger corporations as there would be a track record of solid performance from real companies and not some benchmarks simulating a production environment. Try to make it scalable and modular, so SMB's could install a simple setup of mail+calendar+webclient(?), while larger corporations could add modules as needed. Make sure to include a solid implementation of crypto, by way of GnuPG/OpenSSL/etc.
And finally... collaborate with other projects to roll a LiveCD of your favorite server distro that will include a pre-configured mail+calendar+webclient(?) installation. Demo the hell out of it and distribute professional quality CD's at Linux expos and the like.
That's just my two cents of course...
The penguin will have the last laugh!
Perhaps a Slashdot Interview with Tim Berners-Lee (Director of the W3C) would be in order?
After all, "One of W3C's primary goals is to make these benefits available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability." Quote came from this page.
To that end, a web designer (especially that of a company) should be encouraged to comply with standards put forth by an organization like the W3C. A compliance program (logo based?) should be initiated which would recognize sites that are accessible and fully functional from any modern platform. A check and balance approach, by way of complaint forms (or something along those lines), would be ideal to keep sites from straying after being awarded the logo. A major campaign to distribute open-source/W3C compliant web design tools would be encouraged. An online workshop could be put forth to help web admins during the transition.
Wishful thinking? Perhaps. But I think interviewing the director of the W3C and having the response widely publicized on the 'net would definitely garner some attention.
Competition in the wireless sector is fine as it spurs innovation and leads to creative hacks such as the cantenna (and not to mention, endless fun for /.'ers war drivin' their city looking for unsecured AP's.) But in the end, it's about boosting profitability! This is because this latest offering, for better or worse, will eventually make its way to your local retailer as the "must have" product in wireless computing. The ensuing hype will be directly targeted at the average computer using public who marvels at the latest buzz words, and because of heavy marketing, somehow feel the need to upgrade their "out-dated" equipment.
In reality, 802.11b serves up more than enough bandwidth for the average "connected" home with a desktop and laptop (or two in some cases.) That's even taking into account protocol overhead. Granted, it shares the 2.4GHz spectrum with cordless phones and microwaves, so it cuts off every now and again. But after all, the main use for such equipment is to enable the sharing of a 'net connection. And even if your connection does get cut off momentarily, many apps have an auto-resume feature, so that point is moot. It's not like it's being used to transfer gigs of data between wirelessly connected systems, which is where the move from 802.11b to 802.11g would make sense. And as long as the equipment is upgradable to support newer security standards (WPA/WPA2) by firmware or driver, there wouldn't be a practical need to purchase new equipment.
Here's another way... No extension needed:
* Tools -> Options
* Downloads -> Plug-ins
* Uncheck PDF Extension -> Click Ok
* Click [Ok] again to Exit Options Menu
* Find a link to a PDF and click on it
* A dialog box will pop-up asking what to do with it
* Verify that Open With reads "Acrobat Reader" (or "AcroExch" in the newer versions of Acrobat Reader)
* Check "Do this automatically..." -> Click OK
PDF files will now spawn Acrobat Reader out side of Firefox. This is also helpful on older PC's that slow down to a crawl when opening PDF's within the browser.
When the IE-only sites start to get more complaints about usability from their customers, then you will start to see a steady stream of corporate support for Firefox.
IMHO, the statement should read:
When the IE-only sites hire real web admins that conform to W3C standards and re-design their sites accordingly, Firefox will render their content without issue.
Also, what is needed is a Mozilla Foundation backed OSS web page design software (if it hasn't been already(?)) that will lure web admins away from MS Frontpage.
The classification of his investment is a matter of semantics, plain and simple. Since Dell, the individual and not the company is making the investment, the company's board of directors and other executives can down play the move. This helps to keep Microsoft at bay, as indicated above.
While I've never worked for Dell, contractor or otherwise, it's no secret that there are quite a few employees that like Red Hat and have been pushing it to the execs for quite some time. This is what lead the company to include it in their server products in the first place.
The timing of the investment is interesting because Red Hat has beaten street estimates due to a rise in subscriptions (found in this CNET article.) This must have the Red Hat development team jumping for joy. Dell's involvement will only drive them to introduce innovative technologies to both RHEL and Red Hat Desktop.
What I believe will happen in the not too distant future is that Dell (the company) will:
* Ante up and start promoting Red Hat based servers more than they have done in the past. While it may piss off MS, they'll respond, albeit gently, it's just business and keep going.
* Create a sales bundle for small to medium businesses that will include an RHEL server and x amount of desktops loaded with Red Hat Desktop. All this with a migration team waiting in the wings to help the company through the initial learning curve.
* Similar sales bundle for larger corporations, including clustering services and SAN related products.
and finally...
* Further collaborate with Red Hat to offer special pricing on multi-tiered support packages for Dell customers switching from Windows based systems. Since Dell already offers Linux training services and the like, it would basically be a strengthening of its partnership.
Only time will tell! We'll revisit the issue in a few months as I'm sure it will garner more attention when Dell (the company) makes a move.
Here's a practical way (IMHO of course) for end-users and corporations alike to embrace OO, while maintaining MS Office compatibility, staying on MS' good side by not pirating their Office Suite and saving money in the process.
Note: Read MS' EULA just to make sure, but I don't think corporations would have any licensing issues using these viewers.
Use OpenOffice with its default formats and export to DOC/XLS/PPS-PPT when necessary.
Download the following MS viewers for testing exported versions of OO documents/spreadsheets/presentations before distributing them, or simply viewing a DOC/PPS/XLS file that is not importing correctly in OO:
MS Word Viewer 2003
MS Excel Viewer 2003
MS PowerPoint Viewer 2003
Idea for the OpenOffice programming community
Return the favor by creating OO viewers for those using MS Office.
Comments/Suggestions welcomed!
> * RPC (Remote Procedure Call) and Remote Administration tools implemented on end user machines (If I'm not mistaken, Macs carry these features as well.)
Yes, Macs do have those features. But they are turned off by default. You need an admin's password to turn them on. There are Remote Apple Events, which are also turned off by default.
I made the reference in case some readers weren't aware of it. Such services being disabled by default provides a more secure OS out-of-the-box, especially when it comes to the average user.
You're thinking of Remote Desktop or something, right? Which requires the (rather expensive) software to connect to if the computer is set to allow the connections.
Nope, just what I said above.
The reference M$ was just that -- an old gag to get a chuckle out of fellow /. readers. }:)
As for "The rest is history" comment -- I debated whether or not to include it because you do have a point. But then I said, what the hell!! Someone will catch on and reply to it. Case in point! :)
While gathering such statistical data keeps someone employed and quite busy at that, it doesn't help to remedy the situation.
/. are exempt of course.)
Take for example the rise of free email services (ie. Hotmail, Yahoo!, etc) some years back: They were known to sell off email address in order to cover some operating costs. This was confirmed by researchers who created accounts on various systems (not limited to Hotmail or Yahoo!), and didn't disclose their address to anyone. Several weeks later, SPAM started appearing in their Inboxes. The rest is history...
Other causes:
* Bots/Spiders relentlessly sifting through vast amount of web pages and usenet archives for the simple purpose of harvesting and processing fresh email addresses.
* ID10T errors on the user side as they love to click on attachments they have no clue about.
* Users who participate in chain letters, as anyone's system who is compromised along the way can reveal their email address.
* Poorly configured mail servers who respond to requests for mailing lists.
* Consumers who volunteer their email address to telemarketers, store give-a-way programs, etc. That information is then sold off of course, and voila, more SPAM. Then they have the nerve to ask, why am I getting so much SPAM??!! Bunch of morons!!
With regards to worms and other system exploits:
* Piss poor implementations of TCP/IP (in the case of Windows)
* Weak firewall configurations or none at all (Windows XP's firewall is a joke as it trusts all outgoing connections. Therefore, once the worm has taken hold, it's free to do as it pleases)
* RPC (Remote Procedure Call) and Remote Administration tools implemented on end user machines (If I'm not mistaken, Macs carry these features as well.) This should only be implemented on corporate installations or the like. Since the average end user simply browses the web, checks email and logs onto their favorite IM program, such RPC capabilities should be an opt-in deal. Clients such as FTP and Telnet will still be available, but anything running as a server would be optional, and subject to a two-step authentication before allowing it to listen in on it's given port.
* The wide-spread use of P2P programs with embedded spyware/etc. The user infected by the use of such programs is at fault for this one.
* Unsecured wireless installation in homes. This is a growing concern as such connections are being used to launch DDoS attacks and serve as SPAM gateways, among other things.
(Note: Those using such connections to log on to
and finally...
* CraptiveX (or ActiveX[tm] for those M$ folks out there) - This so-called technology speaks for itself. Oh.. I'm sorry!! It's inherent lack of security is a FEATURE, not a bug.
With the advent and subsequent improvements of LiveCD distros, it should be relatively painless for the average /.'er to:
* Create a multi-session CD/DVD with your favorite Linux LiveCD distro
(or roll your own and create an ISO for future use)
and
* Backup email files to said CD/DVD
(I suggest a set of re-writable media of good quality to play it safe.)
Further suggestions:
1. It would be advisable to split your archives (ie. Mail2004, etc.), especially if you plan to retain a sizeable amount of mail.
2. Convert archives from older mail clients before creating backup, or use a newer mail client that can read the old files with ease.
Good luck!
the way software companies distributed their apps. Before the 'net took root, a fledgling coder or graphic artist would have to rely on BBS' to provide programs such as C++, Photoshop and other utils to gain some experience. Keep in mind that it would take a loooong time to get them because of slow ass modems. The reason the average kid would looked towards BBS' to supply such programs was because they were too damn expensive!! Granted, the argument of a high sticker price would never hold water in court, but that's the way things were. Money was tight, and as many have stated -- it was exciting.
The emmergence of ever faster modems and high-speed lines such as DSL didn't go unnoticed by software makers. They quickly noticed that the impact of pirated warez from a BBS was child's play compared to the global reach of the 'net. FTP sites and IRC channels spread like wildfire and the companies watched helplessly. That's until the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) took hold in 1998. This would be in addition to the enacting of the "No Electronic Theft" Act of 1997, which was designed to close a loophole that let pirates distributing warez off the hook as long as they didn't profit from their actions.
To the original point: Good or bad, pirates DID change the way software manufacturers distributed their apps. The advent of "Trialware" gave the average user a chance to try the product before they forked over good money to buy it.
In today's world, the quality of OSS [Open Source Software] is improving -- sometimes in leaps and bounds. This offers a means of using very functional software without the need to look over your shoulder fearing the men in black would knock down your door any minute with a search warrant from a secret council. The kids of today have it so much easier!!
Happy New Year to all!
anything that it can't decode in real-time (or in the future via archives) for any given use.
As for the suggestion to use UU en/decode or other binary-to-text converters: It's potential use was most probably thought of, which in turn would prompt the creation of a script that would scan through and moderate (or flag for review by IT personnel) those messages which contained headers for programs such as UUencode, PGP, etc.
Like every system, there will always be ways around its security measures. However, there should be no reason why the terminals being used by the soldiers can't be kept free of spyware, keyloggers, and the like (ie. re-imaging workstations at the end of the day.) Either way, the military brass will still have access to the information being sent by soldiers, but would severely limit access to information (and thereby its abuse) by those outside of the group charged with running the system.
God bless the men and women of the United States Armed Forces!!
"This would eliminate the worry of a lost signal causing damage to the phone."
Correction: This would eliminate the worry of a signal loss causing damage to the phone
Earlier this year, there was a conference (Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association or CTIA) which featured a test of the QChat(tm) PTT system. Spear-headed by Nextel, Qualcomm, Kyocera Wireless and Lucent (who happens to be at the core of Sprint's infrastructure), the technology promises cross-platform support. You can read about it here
Given that Qualcomm's Qchat(tm) system is based on CDMA technology (used by Sprint), and is compatible with NexTel's iDEN(tm) network, this should offer some hope to those worried about being forced to part with their current phones. Of course, that remains to be seen. One can only hope for the best!
As with any major merger, one of the keys to success lie in the transition team. All the technology in the world won't help if the decision makers are a bunch of egotistical maniacs, hell-bent on implementing "their" vision (no pun intended on the Sprint moniker) of the direction the combined companies should take. All the while, the customer would be left to suffer at the hands of a lousy tech support staff and billing system from hell (both companies suffer from this.)
I think the implementation of the following features would give rival companies a run for their money:
* Hybrid version of Vision(tm)/NexTel Web that would be cross-platform compatible.
* Cross-platform SMS support
* Unlimited incoming call plans (NexTel)
* Unlimited Mobile-to-Mobile (or PCS-to-PCS from Sprint)
* Unlimited PTT (offered by both - hopefully inter-connected via QChat)
* Proper implementation and use of FOTA (Firmware Over The Air) enabled phones to offer upgrades without the need to visit a local store. Newer Sanyo and Samsung phones offer this feature. I believe many Motorola phones have this capability. If not, a small J2ME program should be written to have the firmware downloaded and only run after the checksum is verified. This would eliminate the worry of a lost signal causing damage to the phone. I don't know the details of the FOTA specs used in Samsung/Sanyo phones, but a similar operation should take place as well.
* New feature MUST: Tech support and billing system that doesn't screw over the customer and/or give them the run around!