I got my second computer (first was a C64) when Win95 first came out. At first I really liked it, but after a few weeks I couldn't wait to get rid of it and went back to using my C64 primarily. Luckily I found out about Linux through a C64 IRC channel and have been a happy Linux ever since.
Win95 was awful. I really can't understand how anyone thought it was halfway decent. Maybe this was just because my first computer experiences were with Commodore (also used GEOS on it) and Macs in middle school.
expect them to have basic computer literacy and actually have some idea of what a bittorrent client is before the make laws governing them
<ted_stevens> Of course I know what BitTorrent is. It's the tool the pirates use to clog up the tubes, preventing me from getting my internets. </ted_stevens>
5 minutes? What the hell are you running? Have you used a Java program since 1998?
I'll do a test right now, with Java 1.6b2 and Eclipse 3.2 with an Athlon 64: 12 seconds to the workbench.
Yep, that's a long time. Keep in mind Eclipse is a heavy app and I do have many extensions installed. Other Java apps I use regularly, such as pdftk (command line) come up instantly and work very fast.
Properly written Java apps are not slow, though if they use Swing they look hideous.
I did that when SP2 was released. What I'm talking about is the large amount of patches needed to apply against SP2 after doing a fresh install. There is a large amount of updates needed, here's a list:
Windows XP SP2 - Critical Updates KB873339: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB885835: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB885836: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB886185: Critical Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB887742: Critical Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB888302: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB890046: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB890859: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB891781: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB893756: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB896358: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB896422: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB896423: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB896424: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB896428: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB899587: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB899589: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB899591: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB900725: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB901017: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB901190: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB901214: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB905414: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB905749: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB908519: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB908531: Security Update for Windows XP (v2) (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB911280: Security Update for Windows XP (v2) (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB911562: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB911564: Security Update for Plug-in do Windows Media Player (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB911567: Cumulative Security Update for Outlook Express for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB911927: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB912919: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB913580: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB914388: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB914389: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB917422: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB917537: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB917953: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB918439: Security Update for Internet Explorer for Windows XP SP2 (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB918899: Cumulative Update for Internet Explorer for Windows XP SP2 (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB919007: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB920214: Security Update for Outlook Express for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB920670: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB920683: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...) KB920685: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra t
There will be problems as long as people continue to believe this. Email is a like a post card. Are you going to send sensitive information using post cards? Unless you're a complete and utter moron you're going to use an envelope. PGP is the email equivalent.
PGP really is not difficult to use. Enigmail for Thunderbird does the "hard" parts for you and assists in creating a key. To encrypt a message is as simple as clicking the encrypt button when composing. It's also that easy in Evolution.
One thing that should work well would be to use a hybrid setup. Like:
1. Voter uses electronic system to vote and verify that the selections are correct (in large print and easily identifiable so certain Floridians can't complain afterwords).
2. Vote is recorded electronicly.
3. Paper receipt is printed for the voter.
4. Bubble sheet is printed and given to the voter. This should be verified by the voter and then given to the poll workers.
5. Poll workers run bubble sheet through scanner to verify.
6. After election, all bubble sheets are scanned again and compaired to both the electronic count and the scans done by the poll workers.
That should be at least as secure as the current non-electronic methods. Should also provide a higher accuracy rate.
Unless by modifying those bits you open a hole allowing your computer to become part of a botnet. Then your machine will be doing harm to servers around the world...
The collapse of residential computer security has meant that virtually nobody can keep their Windows machine secure anymore. Not even gurus. There are just way too many 0-day exploits for browsers and others out there, even for Firefox.
I would question their claim of being a guru if that's the case. It's really not that difficult to use Windows without getting compromised.
The thing, though, is I really do not trust Microsoft with that power. I'm sure after Vista this will be expanded and used for DRM.
Dealing with destructive high school students one of the things I have to do. Here's a few things to keep in mind.
Use a domain.
Put all desktop and menu items in the netlogon/All Users folder.
After creating the user's profile and it's copied to the server, rename ntuser.dat to ntuser.man (means mandatory). Set Samba to disallow write access. This will prevent them from writing changes back to the server.
Use the administrative templates to lock down everything that can possibly locked down. If you don't, some bastard will change it and you'll have to fix it. This can be scripted.
Make use of whatever lockdown features are available in your software. Believe me, you'll need it.
Install the Shared Computer Toolkit. It provides many addition lockdown features. Anoying thing about it, though, is that it requires the computer to be "validated". Not just activated. Make use of it's "Disk Protection" feature.
Disable access to everything you possibly can, except what's needed.
Use optical mice. Keep many extras. Expect buttons to be torn off. Expect mice to be regularly stolen, so use cheap ones. Also expect paper or other garbage to be jammed into the sensor. That also applies to floppy drives and cdrom drives.
Keep many extra keyboards. Be prepeared to spend time every week putting the keys back in the correct order. Keys will also be stolen.
Most of the student won't try to break things, but a few assholes will so you have to make sure they can do the least amount of damage possible. Unless, of course, you feel like cleaning things up daily.
You could also get an Active Directory domain and push the restrictions that way. I prefer to script it since I prefer to have my servers run Linux.
I've maintain many nVidia-based machines (nForce2 and integrated GeForce4) and have not had any problems. Either with FC4, FC5, and Ubuntu. I remember reading about problems with FC5, but the articles made it seem the problem was just with the installer.
Have you tried installing Fedora with the text installer (IIRC, type "text" at the prompt)? Have to tried installing Ubuntu with the text installer (the alternate cd, not the desktop cd)? Have you tried OpenSUSE*?
* Give it a try. It definitely has polish, though the default Gnome in 10.1 is too Windows-ish for my takes, complete with the urine-like color. It's KDE support is excellent. Once you make it's Gnome look and behave like Gnome, it's also excellent.
Well, Ubuntu at least makes update releases. For example, 6.06.1 had all current updates applied. It would be nice if Fedora made something similar available to new users. After a few months into a release, a 'yum update' takes a long time on a new install.
Cool. Hopefully the problems I had are just related to the packages I was using. I'm looking forward for Edgy to be released so I can try it on that. I had to use AIGLX since my card (ATI Radeon 9200, with fully Open Source drivers (the only reason I went with a slower, older card)) only works with it and not XGL.
One other question. Does Edgy fix the "shift"-"backspace" problem with XGL? Last time I tried that with my nVidia-equipt work computer that was driving me crazy.
Is it stable in Edgy? I got it working with AIGLX this weekend under Dapper, but the system was reduced to Windows 95 stability. Couldn't even ssh in to kill X. Looked really cool, though.
I gave up after having my desktop freeze five times in a day and a half. I haven't had a single freeze in almost a year, and the ones I got before that were due to a flaky power supply.
Not to mention Galeon also had it before Mozilla. Back before Pheonix* even existed. The implementation in Firefox is very close to what was in Galeon.
* For those who don't know, this was an early name for Firefox.
I've had co-workers bring me their computers, along with a new hard drive claiming that it "crashed" and thought they needed a new hard drive. The problem turns out to be a severe spyware/virus infestation causing it to not even boot, but the hard drive itself was fine (no bad blocks).
ClamAV is great for scanning email, but when scanning for system viruses it's really not that good. I've seen it miss dozens of viruses that BitDefender, AVG, and F-Prot picked up.
It's not like an iPod has irreplaceable data on it. You should still have the media files on your computer, making it more like a backup. If you really do keep the only copy of your music on your iPod, then losing it is the risk you take.
I use my iPod also as a jump drive, but anything on it is either on my home computers, work computer, or laptop. If it got damaged, it's still somewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
I got my second computer (first was a C64) when Win95 first came out. At first I really liked it, but after a few weeks I couldn't wait to get rid of it and went back to using my C64 primarily. Luckily I found out about Linux through a C64 IRC channel and have been a happy Linux ever since.
Win95 was awful. I really can't understand how anyone thought it was halfway decent. Maybe this was just because my first computer experiences were with Commodore (also used GEOS on it) and Macs in middle school.
<ted_stevens>
Of course I know what BitTorrent is. It's the tool the pirates use to clog up the tubes, preventing me from getting my internets.
</ted_stevens>
5 minutes? What the hell are you running? Have you used a Java program since 1998?
I'll do a test right now, with Java 1.6b2 and Eclipse 3.2 with an Athlon 64: 12 seconds to the workbench.
Yep, that's a long time. Keep in mind Eclipse is a heavy app and I do have many extensions installed. Other Java apps I use regularly, such as pdftk (command line) come up instantly and work very fast.
Properly written Java apps are not slow, though if they use Swing they look hideous.
I did that when SP2 was released. What I'm talking about is the large amount of patches needed to apply against SP2 after doing a fresh install. There is a large amount of updates needed, here's a list:
Windows XP SP2 - Critical Updates
KB873339: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB885835: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB885836: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB886185: Critical Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB887742: Critical Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB888302: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB890046: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB890859: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB891781: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB893756: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB896358: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB896422: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB896423: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB896424: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB896428: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB899587: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB899589: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB899591: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB900725: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB901017: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB901190: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB901214: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB905414: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB905749: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB908519: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB908531: Security Update for Windows XP (v2) (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB911280: Security Update for Windows XP (v2) (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB911562: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB911564: Security Update for Plug-in do Windows Media Player (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB911567: Cumulative Security Update for Outlook Express for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB911927: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB912919: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB913580: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB914388: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB914389: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB917422: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB917537: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB917953: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB918439: Security Update for Internet Explorer for Windows XP SP2 (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB918899: Cumulative Update for Internet Explorer for Windows XP SP2 (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB919007: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB920214: Security Update for Outlook Express for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB920670: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB920683: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra text for lameness filter...)
KB920685: Security Update for Windows XP (...extra t
Provide an update rollout? Really, have you seen the massive amount of updates required to apply against SP2 on a fresh install?
I would bet that after the aliens were defeated many would simply go back to hating each other again.
There will be problems as long as people continue to believe this. Email is a like a post card. Are you going to send sensitive information using post cards? Unless you're a complete and utter moron you're going to use an envelope. PGP is the email equivalent.
PGP really is not difficult to use. Enigmail for Thunderbird does the "hard" parts for you and assists in creating a key. To encrypt a message is as simple as clicking the encrypt button when composing. It's also that easy in Evolution.
Not to mention that it butchers the quality. It's not like a 128 bit aac file is all that good to start with.
One thing that should work well would be to use a hybrid setup. Like:
1. Voter uses electronic system to vote and verify that the selections are correct (in large print and easily identifiable so certain Floridians can't complain afterwords).
2. Vote is recorded electronicly.
3. Paper receipt is printed for the voter.
4. Bubble sheet is printed and given to the voter. This should be verified by the voter and then given to the poll workers.
5. Poll workers run bubble sheet through scanner to verify.
6. After election, all bubble sheets are scanned again and compaired to both the electronic count and the scans done by the poll workers.
That should be at least as secure as the current non-electronic methods. Should also provide a higher accuracy rate.
Here you go...
Unless by modifying those bits you open a hole allowing your computer to become part of a botnet. Then your machine will be doing harm to servers around the world...
I would question their claim of being a guru if that's the case. It's really not that difficult to use Windows without getting compromised.
The thing, though, is I really do not trust Microsoft with that power. I'm sure after Vista this will be expanded and used for DRM.
Most of the student won't try to break things, but a few assholes will so you have to make sure they can do the least amount of damage possible. Unless, of course, you feel like cleaning things up daily.
You could also get an Active Directory domain and push the restrictions that way. I prefer to script it since I prefer to have my servers run Linux.
I'm aware of that, but how is a new user going to know about it? It should be a part of the Fedora project or at least linked to from their site.
I've maintain many nVidia-based machines (nForce2 and integrated GeForce4) and have not had any problems. Either with FC4, FC5, and Ubuntu. I remember reading about problems with FC5, but the articles made it seem the problem was just with the installer.
Have you tried installing Fedora with the text installer (IIRC, type "text" at the prompt)? Have to tried installing Ubuntu with the text installer (the alternate cd, not the desktop cd)? Have you tried OpenSUSE*?
* Give it a try. It definitely has polish, though the default Gnome in 10.1 is too Windows-ish for my takes, complete with the urine-like color. It's KDE support is excellent. Once you make it's Gnome look and behave like Gnome, it's also excellent.
Well, Ubuntu at least makes update releases. For example, 6.06.1 had all current updates applied. It would be nice if Fedora made something similar available to new users. After a few months into a release, a 'yum update' takes a long time on a new install.
Really, have any of you actually used Fedora's KDE? The parent is correct, at least for releases up to FC5 (haven't tried FC6).
Cool. Hopefully the problems I had are just related to the packages I was using. I'm looking forward for Edgy to be released so I can try it on that. I had to use AIGLX since my card (ATI Radeon 9200, with fully Open Source drivers (the only reason I went with a slower, older card)) only works with it and not XGL.
One other question. Does Edgy fix the "shift"-"backspace" problem with XGL? Last time I tried that with my nVidia-equipt work computer that was driving me crazy.
Is it stable in Edgy? I got it working with AIGLX this weekend under Dapper, but the system was reduced to Windows 95 stability. Couldn't even ssh in to kill X. Looked really cool, though.
I gave up after having my desktop freeze five times in a day and a half. I haven't had a single freeze in almost a year, and the ones I got before that were due to a flaky power supply.
Not to mention Galeon also had it before Mozilla. Back before Pheonix* even existed. The implementation in Firefox is very close to what was in Galeon.
* For those who don't know, this was an early name for Firefox.
I've had co-workers bring me their computers, along with a new hard drive claiming that it "crashed" and thought they needed a new hard drive. The problem turns out to be a severe spyware/virus infestation causing it to not even boot, but the hard drive itself was fine (no bad blocks).
Try a daily BitDefender scan. It works well and the on demand scanner is free:
e -Products.html
http://www.bitdefender.com/site/view/Download-Fre
ClamAV is great for scanning email, but when scanning for system viruses it's really not that good. I've seen it miss dozens of viruses that BitDefender, AVG, and F-Prot picked up.
So does Microsoft. And it's on by default and "good enough".
So far I've had less issues with it than with Flash 7. No crashes yet, though Flash 7 hasn't crashed for me in a long time. Give it a try.
It's not like an iPod has irreplaceable data on it. You should still have the media files on your computer, making it more like a backup. If you really do keep the only copy of your music on your iPod, then losing it is the risk you take.
I use my iPod also as a jump drive, but anything on it is either on my home computers, work computer, or laptop. If it got damaged, it's still somewhere.