Re:Vista is the Bizarro XP
on
Pimp Your XP
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· Score: 1
Because then a malicious program could watch for an action that would normally require authentication, and then elevate its permissions with no authentication required.
Re:Vista is the Bizarro XP
on
Pimp Your XP
·
· Score: 1
I would have agreed with you about UAC when I first installed Vista. I found the constant popups to be annoying and useless. However, I ended up turning it back on later, after an article about how most users would rarely see the dialog box, and realized it's right.
UAC only shows up for specific actions that would normally require administrative access. I see it just as frequently as I see the gksudo dialog when running Ubuntu. When installing applications, when allowing firewall exceptions, and when running administrative tools and commands. When you first install Vista, you're doing a lot of that stuff pretty darn often, so it seems like the screens are never ending. However, after everything has settled down, and your system is configured to your liking, you rarely see the UAC dialogs again. The only reason I see them more than once a week is because I use a few administrative tools often, and have one program that requires administrator access to run. Assuming a bypass isn't found for it, UAC should provide a good defense against stuff doing things you don't want.
As far as slow and clunky: Vista performs about the same as Gnome + Compiz on my dual-core 2GB machine (rather speedy, actually). I've found a loss of a couple FPS in my games, while gaining the ability for them to run in windowed mode with almost no penalty. I like that. I haven't tested it on my old P4 2.6. However, remember that now your graphics card actually helps determine system performance, due to the revamped GDI.
However this is all anecdotal, of course, and YMMV. I just want to point out that not everyone completely reviles the system. My only complaint so far is that lack of third party drivers (which, strangely enough, is my biggest complaint on my Linux boxes as well).
Well, I don't know if you'll accept one well-trusted source instead of three random blogs, but here you go:
According to Secunia (for 2007): Vista - 7 advisories, 2 unpatched (unpatched vulns listed as not critical) OSX - 16 advisories, 3 unpatched (unpatched vulns listed as less critical)
There's too few to have a meaningful comparison of vuln severity levels, but OSX would win on percentages.
For what the original poster actually said "...even more than XP in recent years..."
Here is 2006: XP - 45 Advisories (36% rated "Highly Cticial" or above) OSX - 24 Advisories (42% rated "Highly Critical" or above)
Doesn't really hold water unless you compare the severity levels. Even then, that's sort of a shaky argument, but hey, that's what the internet was made for.
2. Users LOATHE ads. This should be obvious. Is it just me, or are advertisements starting to have a reverse effect? You see an advertisement or commercial spot, and suddenly you're pissed off at the company in question for ramming advertising down your throat and find yourself not wanting to buy whatever they're selling, even if you need it.
Well, I don't actually "loathe" ads unless they get in my way. Otherwise, I'm perfectly fine with them. I don't consider buying a billboard to be any more "ramming it down my throat" than buying a banner ad.
(Those stupid DHTML pop-up ads can go to hell though. I'll never, ever buy whatever that purple medicine is thanks to those.)
I'm sure my experiences aren't representative of the whole, but I quit trying to dual boot after FC3 ruined my windows partition for the umpteenth time. Dedicated Linux comps only until I gave Ubuntu a shot last year.
Well, to be honest, it wasn't until the first time I installed an Ubuntu flavor of linux that my Windows partition didn't get clobbered. For whatever reason, Red Hat, and subsequently Fedora, would always, without fail, cause my system to be able to only run Linux despite the fact that it asked me if I wanted to set up a dual boot.
"... the issue with a quiz is that it would have to be able to be taken again in the future if your knowledge increases."
I don't know what kind of crazy unicorn populated optimistic world you live in, but every user I've ever met who would benefit from these tests would never increase their knowledge on computers no matter how long they use them.
Yes, I agree that there are many more OS vulnerabilities than driver problems. I was using that as the example because that will be the biggest chink in the armor of a "Secure OS". If you depend on third party drivers (and as long as drivers run in kernel space) no matter how secure you make your OS, those drivers can be exploited if they are not written to the same standards.
However, with the number of vulnerabilities that Apple has patched recently, it seems that malware authors' favorite technique of "reverse engineer the patch and exploit unpatched machines" would still be a viable option if Macs gain market share. But, I'm not arguing about security of various OSes, just the worrying prospect of extremely limited choice in hardware.
But here's the thing, if 50% of businesses switch to Macs then close to 100% of those businesses will have identical computers down to the hardware. Not so if they are running their PCs now (while they may be very similar, a driver hack on one machine will only work with companies who have the same hardware, instead of any company).
I guess a monoculture environment is only bad if it's Windows PCs? I see arguments for it being even worse with Macs...mainly because you're virtually assured that the environment will be identical, down to the hardware, for whatever piece of malware you're writing.
And Vista has it completely. Just start up the Resource Monitor (either via the start menu, or the button on the task manager) and you can see all your I/O statistics, as well as several other computer health stats.
Firstly, I don't know where you get your mythological stability numbers, but I'm going on two months with no reboot (and even then it was for a third party unsigned driver installation), and the speed is just fine. The overall OS is much faster at the expense of a couple FPS in games. Whoop-di-do.
Finally, everyone has complained and complained about the DRM in Vista. I hate to tell you, but I haven't encountered it in anything except files I've purchased from iTunes. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but from the way folks were talking the mere fact that you had audio files on your system was enough to get Vista to lock it down and start DRMing them. Doesn't happen.
Home Server does a few things (I'm one of the testers, so this is first hand)
It allows you to automatically set up shared public folders for all the computers in your home It sets up private folders for each computer user in your home that are available to them when they log in to any of the computers in your home and are inaccessible to other users It automatically schedules and manages backups for your machines, allowing the ability to rollback a machine to a previous point, even when you can't even boot in to it anymore It has a user management system that doesn't depend on active directory or other normal centralized schemes (it assumes that logins on separate computers with the same username and password are the same login) It has a rudimentary API so one could technically expand on its capabilities easily.
Most importantly, it is done in a stupid proof fashion. It's not meant for the type of person who would be comfortable configuring a shared drive off of their router. It's meant for the type of person that expects every action to be "insert disk and it works". For example, if you need to add hard drive space to the server, you install the drive, and the server automatically detects, formats, and adds the drive to its LVM with no configuration required on your end. The space just "appears".
It has its uses, and it's not for everyone. But as I said, the "magic" per se isn't in the capabilities, it's in the simplicity of use.
You said the Microsoft will "Copy the Competition" but PCs and Consoles do not compete, they are very different market segments. The competition (Nintendo and Sony) are still lagging way behind Microsoft in the online arena.
I am a Nintendo fanboy and anti-Microsoft, but this is just true.
In that story, there was not actually hotlinking going on. It was, in fact, simply Fuddruckers linking to the page that had the flash game. This is an entirely different situation.
You have echoed my life perfectly. Except I *did* go to school for music, I just am gainfully employed for my self taught hobby (Software Engineering).
I know plenty of women that are more than smart enough to go into the field, they just have no interest in it at all. My wife is brillian in math, but programming (which is really just a whole LOT of math) doesn't catch her attention. Who knows.
This, I imagine, is exactly why this was passed. This is exactly what everyone was asking for when they asked why the federal government was unable to immediately send troops into the area. Congratualtions.
You missed an apple adoption of technology that the rest of the industy has ignored - ExpressCard. No apple computer ships with a PCMIA [sic] slot. The MacBook Pro has an ExpressCard/34 slot, so a PCMCIA sized PDA wouldn't fit anyway.
HP and Dell have both been using ExpressCard for a while now.
The industry ignoring ExpressCard is the cell phone companies. PCMCIA only cards until very recently.
eMule is not a business, but an opensource project. Same with Shareaza, Frostwire, Azureus, etc. You can't sue anyone, because there's no entity to sue.
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Because then a malicious program could watch for an action that would normally require authentication, and then elevate its permissions with no authentication required.
I would have agreed with you about UAC when I first installed Vista. I found the constant popups to be annoying and useless. However, I ended up turning it back on later, after an article about how most users would rarely see the dialog box, and realized it's right.
UAC only shows up for specific actions that would normally require administrative access. I see it just as frequently as I see the gksudo dialog when running Ubuntu. When installing applications, when allowing firewall exceptions, and when running administrative tools and commands. When you first install Vista, you're doing a lot of that stuff pretty darn often, so it seems like the screens are never ending. However, after everything has settled down, and your system is configured to your liking, you rarely see the UAC dialogs again. The only reason I see them more than once a week is because I use a few administrative tools often, and have one program that requires administrator access to run. Assuming a bypass isn't found for it, UAC should provide a good defense against stuff doing things you don't want.
As far as slow and clunky: Vista performs about the same as Gnome + Compiz on my dual-core 2GB machine (rather speedy, actually). I've found a loss of a couple FPS in my games, while gaining the ability for them to run in windowed mode with almost no penalty. I like that. I haven't tested it on my old P4 2.6. However, remember that now your graphics card actually helps determine system performance, due to the revamped GDI.
However this is all anecdotal, of course, and YMMV. I just want to point out that not everyone completely reviles the system. My only complaint so far is that lack of third party drivers (which, strangely enough, is my biggest complaint on my Linux boxes as well).
Those numbers are total for all time, not for the year. Please scroll down to the actual numbers, not the first thing you see on the page.
Well, I don't know if you'll accept one well-trusted source instead of three random blogs, but here you go:
According to Secunia (for 2007):
Vista - 7 advisories, 2 unpatched (unpatched vulns listed as not critical)
OSX - 16 advisories, 3 unpatched (unpatched vulns listed as less critical)
There's too few to have a meaningful comparison of vuln severity levels, but OSX would win on percentages.
For what the original poster actually said "...even more than XP in recent years..."
Here is 2006:
XP - 45 Advisories (36% rated "Highly Cticial" or above)
OSX - 24 Advisories (42% rated "Highly Critical" or above)
Doesn't really hold water unless you compare the severity levels. Even then, that's sort of a shaky argument, but hey, that's what the internet was made for.
Wow! Such amazing arguments! I mean, that's ironclad. No one can refute anything you said!
2. Users LOATHE ads. This should be obvious. Is it just me, or are advertisements starting to have a reverse effect? You see an advertisement or commercial spot, and suddenly you're pissed off at the company in question for ramming advertising down your throat and find yourself not wanting to buy whatever they're selling, even if you need it.
Well, I don't actually "loathe" ads unless they get in my way. Otherwise, I'm perfectly fine with them. I don't consider buying a billboard to be any more "ramming it down my throat" than buying a banner ad.
(Those stupid DHTML pop-up ads can go to hell though. I'll never, ever buy whatever that purple medicine is thanks to those.)
I'm sure my experiences aren't representative of the whole, but I quit trying to dual boot after FC3 ruined my windows partition for the umpteenth time. Dedicated Linux comps only until I gave Ubuntu a shot last year.
Well, to be honest, it wasn't until the first time I installed an Ubuntu flavor of linux that my Windows partition didn't get clobbered. For whatever reason, Red Hat, and subsequently Fedora, would always, without fail, cause my system to be able to only run Linux despite the fact that it asked me if I wanted to set up a dual boot.
"... the issue with a quiz is that it would have to be able to be taken again in the future if your knowledge increases."
I don't know what kind of crazy unicorn populated optimistic world you live in, but every user I've ever met who would benefit from these tests would never increase their knowledge on computers no matter how long they use them.
Yes, I agree that there are many more OS vulnerabilities than driver problems. I was using that as the example because that will be the biggest chink in the armor of a "Secure OS". If you depend on third party drivers (and as long as drivers run in kernel space) no matter how secure you make your OS, those drivers can be exploited if they are not written to the same standards.
However, with the number of vulnerabilities that Apple has patched recently, it seems that malware authors' favorite technique of "reverse engineer the patch and exploit unpatched machines" would still be a viable option if Macs gain market share. But, I'm not arguing about security of various OSes, just the worrying prospect of extremely limited choice in hardware.
But here's the thing, if 50% of businesses switch to Macs then close to 100% of those businesses will have identical computers down to the hardware. Not so if they are running their PCs now (while they may be very similar, a driver hack on one machine will only work with companies who have the same hardware, instead of any company).
I guess a monoculture environment is only bad if it's Windows PCs? I see arguments for it being even worse with Macs...mainly because you're virtually assured that the environment will be identical, down to the hardware, for whatever piece of malware you're writing.
And Vista has it completely. Just start up the Resource Monitor (either via the start menu, or the button on the task manager) and you can see all your I/O statistics, as well as several other computer health stats.
Been JonXP since '96. Has nothing to do with Microsoft. I'll be glad when all this is done with and those jokes can finally stop.
Unstable? Slow? DRM Laden?
Firstly, I don't know where you get your mythological stability numbers, but I'm going on two months with no reboot (and even then it was for a third party unsigned driver installation), and the speed is just fine. The overall OS is much faster at the expense of a couple FPS in games. Whoop-di-do.
Finally, everyone has complained and complained about the DRM in Vista. I hate to tell you, but I haven't encountered it in anything except files I've purchased from iTunes. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but from the way folks were talking the mere fact that you had audio files on your system was enough to get Vista to lock it down and start DRMing them. Doesn't happen.
Home Server does a few things (I'm one of the testers, so this is first hand)
It allows you to automatically set up shared public folders for all the computers in your home
It sets up private folders for each computer user in your home that are available to them when they log in to any of the computers in your home and are inaccessible to other users
It automatically schedules and manages backups for your machines, allowing the ability to rollback a machine to a previous point, even when you can't even boot in to it anymore
It has a user management system that doesn't depend on active directory or other normal centralized schemes (it assumes that logins on separate computers with the same username and password are the same login)
It has a rudimentary API so one could technically expand on its capabilities easily.
Most importantly, it is done in a stupid proof fashion. It's not meant for the type of person who would be comfortable configuring a shared drive off of their router. It's meant for the type of person that expects every action to be "insert disk and it works". For example, if you need to add hard drive space to the server, you install the drive, and the server automatically detects, formats, and adds the drive to its LVM with no configuration required on your end. The space just "appears".
It has its uses, and it's not for everyone. But as I said, the "magic" per se isn't in the capabilities, it's in the simplicity of use.
Standard on PCs != Standard on Consoles
You said the Microsoft will "Copy the Competition" but PCs and Consoles do not compete, they are very different market segments. The competition (Nintendo and Sony) are still lagging way behind Microsoft in the online arena.
I am a Nintendo fanboy and anti-Microsoft, but this is just true.
I can imagine that there is a ton of demand for this non-existent product right now.
I want one so badly...
In that story, there was not actually hotlinking going on. It was, in fact, simply Fuddruckers linking to the page that had the flash game. This is an entirely different situation.
You have echoed my life perfectly. Except I *did* go to school for music, I just am gainfully employed for my self taught hobby (Software Engineering).
I know plenty of women that are more than smart enough to go into the field, they just have no interest in it at all. My wife is brillian in math, but programming (which is really just a whole LOT of math) doesn't catch her attention. Who knows.
This, I imagine, is exactly why this was passed. This is exactly what everyone was asking for when they asked why the federal government was unable to immediately send troops into the area. Congratualtions.
The industry ignoring ExpressCard is the cell phone companies. PCMCIA only cards until very recently.
The browser comes with a ram expansion pack to allow for this.
Considering the PS3 has a motion sensitive controller too, you may want to go ahead and get the Xbox.
eMule is not a business, but an opensource project. Same with Shareaza, Frostwire, Azureus, etc. You can't sue anyone, because there's no entity to sue.