Depends on the login. If it is something I care about then the Internet won't be the only channel in the line of communications. The system that I ssh with at work uses three channels of communication, the Internet being one of them, but the others are there to carry information and authenticate the other channels, the system is able to tell if a MITM attack is happening since the packets on the Internet channel will start getting out of sync (basically a different channel asks the remote host to switch certs mid conversation, the MITM never knows about the switch up since they aren't listening to that channel, the host requests more information but the information is sent using the old cert, not the one that was suppose to be switched to, thus you can see the MITM didn't get the notice). Standard emails use two step verification and those that I truly wish to talk to have shared keys for communication. Just two step verification which is offered by GMail is usually enough to keep 99% of hackers out of your inbox. Using an email client that has integrated GPG and using two step disk encryption for your inbox (that's pass phrase and USB stick authentication) will protect you from 99.999% of the crackers out there. All of this is very easy for the home consumer to get.
The Internet isn't the only way to communicate (OTP, SMS, private fiber, usb sticks, shortwave radio, PSTN, and a host of other methods). The more people rely on the Internet as their single channel of communication, the more they open themselves to attack. It's just like anything, having only a single way of doing stuff makes it easy to get attacked.
List what you think will keep you safe, and someone will prove you wrong.
The first thing I learned about keeping yourself safe from the Internet is to make your computer worthless. Someone is always going to break in, there is no stopping that, but if the information that they gain is absolutely worthless, they've really gained nothing. When someone finally does invade my computer and takes all my information, they'll find a whole lot of information that will direct them to someone who doesn't really exist, a credit card that has $6.00 in the bank, a tax return with invalid SSN, a web browser with two minutes of history, a bunch of photos of people I don't know and pictures of fruit and my hand giving them the finger, and a whole slew of things meant to get their attention, like weakly encrypted files, files that sound important and so on. All of it in an attempt to get them to gather the data, I want them to have. They won't get bandwidth or CPU cycles, I kept pretty detailed logs on my Internet traffic. I'd notice if I saw my CPU working 3% harder than it should at a given time, or if I saw a bump in traffic to addresses I don't visit.
I don't want anyone on my system, but if they do get on it, then I want them to have the data on it. All of the *real* data is elsewhere or never touches a computer.
I'm not sure about the full body email search, but if you wanted to do that wouldn't you want semantic desktop? I guess what you're asking is how to have such an option in KMail without having to include the entire kitchen sink that is the semantic desktop? I think you can pick and choose the services that nepomuk uses, but I would be out of my element on that since I just turn the whole thing off. If there isn't a way to filter nepomuk to only be used for KMail, then that would be a great request.
Yes you can remove the semantic desktop stuff. Gentoo has a compile option that you can include that will specifically build KDE sans the semantic desktop.
How would good computing habits stop, or even just phase, a virus of this magnitude?
You've missed the point of my post. I was not putting good habits on the level of this virus in question. In fact, I never said the flame virus at any point in my post. The flame virus has nothing to do with my post. You have insert subject matter into my post that was never there, nor was it anywhere closely related to what I posted, meant, or could be possibly derived from my post. In short, my post said absolutely nothing about the virus that is talked about in the news story, nor was there anything in my post that lead to that conclusion. I admonish your interjection that I had ever said anything related to the virus in this story as there could be nothing further from the point and subject matter of my post.
Now that I hope we have made it crystal clear that I am not talking about the flame virus.
Anti-virus companies do not deal with real virus', they deal with run of the mill script kiddies and other things that good computing habits can prevent. Therefore I doubt the value of any AV company's opinion or product. Since it is non-news that they couldn't help anyone when faced with a real threat.
There I've compacted my post for you. Perhaps that will help your comprehension, or if you like I'll put it into a single sentence for you.
AV companies are like mall security, why the bring them up when the subject is a war?
Better?
it could be sending out your credit card into and be a proxy to everything without telling you
Don't use your credit card for online purchases, or in my case, setup a secondary bank backed CC that has limited access to your primary funds. Move funding into the secondary as needed. Even if they get the CC number I use on the Internet, at best they are leaving with $11.38 at the current moment.
or if someone is running a MITM on you
Long story short, there are connections where I care about MITM and those that I don't care about them. The ones where I don't care are because even if there was a MITM attack, they've gain absolutely nothing that they couldn't have already gained without attacking me. The ones where I do care, the connection is verified using a method not attached to the Internet. Most MITM attacks are simply watching the Internet traffic and are unaware that second and third channel communications are going on to verify the Internet connection.
how sure are you that not a single signing key to any package on your system is compromised
Again, long story short. Even if someone sent me a bad package, they'll gain nothing as nothing is stored on the machine and the machine has limited access to the information that I'm currently using. The state the machine was in when I get to it, is the state I leave the machine in. As far as network and CPU resources, simply checking your logs will show you any spikes that are out of the usual. A home PC has very little objective value. Usually CC, personal, contact, web history, etc or CPU and bandwidth. Not very difficult to protect that information if you do not keep it on your machine and check your logs. Targeted attacks to get deeper information would spend more money on the attack then on what they gained, I'm okay with the idea that the ROI for the robber is in the negative. That'll teach them.
Also that's a little disingenuous, most distros use one or two keys to sign all of the packages. So I would have to check one or two keys at most. Not exactly a huge sample size. Secondly, someone did hijack a key on Fedora at one point. It was easy to see that the key was jacked, and to check binaries at the tree in large volumes for differences. No differences were found, but if there were, code reviews would be possible to ensure that new builds wouldn't add in non-reviewed code. A signing key getting jacked isn't exactly a huge problem so long as the binary matches binaries built from reviewed code (aka checksums). MD5 has the ability to have collision which is why distros provide SHA and MD5 checksums, to mitigate that risk. A jacked key is only of value if no one finds out about it and bad code can get pushed to systems without no one knowing. So jacked keys require a pretty heafty level of keeping quiet and silently moving updates in while no one is looking. Given that usually a good number of people are watching this, jacked keys are poor for targets at the mass. You'd want to use a hijacked private key at a very small target, because as soon as someone sounds the alarm, your key is usless. The fewer the eyes, the less the chance of getting caught. However, I do indeed check my binaries aganst checksums to make sure that updated packages match known good packages, so I'd be a tripwire for this kind of attack, they may hit me, but they would loose all value in their key. Again, the ROI would be negative on their side because they could have done a lot of damage, but if they hit the one guy that's paranoid and goes back and checks the binarys on every update, boom all that damage they could of done is gone.
I've not held much faith for anti-virus companies. Never was I under the idea that AV software would stop a *real* virus. To me, anti-virus software is just a way to keep the script kiddies and adware ActiveX controls off a system. Good computing habits preclude the need for AV software. Just my two cents.
The Koreans dispute the name, mainly the South Koreans. Like all naming disputes, it doesn't matter the lands that border them, it's mostly a political and pride issue. Koreans dislike the name because the name for the body of water arose when Korea was under Japaneese rule, so it is kind of a reminder to them of that period. Not all things in this world are based on sound reasoning. Just a hint of research on your part would have clued you in on this, however, I have the fortune to actually remember this point from high school days. Ah, memories!
and they each average one movie every other day, that's 248gb.
Geez, who has time for that? Usually the "family of four" here all watch the same movie at the same time. Add in the fact that most of our time is running between which kid has a game tonight and who's cooking dinner and who's clean which part of the house. We're lucky to get one or two movies via Netflix per every other week.
That's before doing anything via a VPN to work, backing up your data remotely with any of a number of services, streaming radio, streaming music (mog.com, etc), watching youtube, playing videogames
My company pays for a seperate connection to the Internet for VPN access. Maybe we should all push for that. I backup my data to an external hard drive. I'm paranoid so sue me. Whatever happen to just listening to the radio? My kid pulled that crap once at home. They were listening to a local station via the Internet, I asked why the hell he just didn't turn on the radio? Also, why don't cell phones come with FM tuners? They shove BT, wifi, GPS, and cellphone receivers in there, what's one more?! Add in an HDTV tuner to that request too. (No I don't think they should shove a CB tuner in there, but I bet FRS would be really cool!) Videogame usage in the house is pretty minimal, one kid is grounded until December, the other has no interest in videogames, I play Wii but I'm totally asocial, so I steer away from Internet based games. Wife likes "Just Dance" I don't think that the game has an online componet to it.
You are not the average user, by far.
By all accounts, I would be more inclined to believe that your example is not average by far. As most of the families that I have to pretend to like, live roughly the same lifestyle as myself as far as Internet usage goes, and I'm the dweeb they call up to fix their computer when they forget how to bold text in Word. "Hi, yeah I know you're [my son's name]'s father, this is [friend of my son's name]'s mother, and I heard that you are really good with computers... [you get the idea]" So I would dare say I've gotten a little more insight on these people's Internet usage than I'd care to have.
It is important to find out why more sales are occuring. Also, from the story, it doesn't sound like they had a huge return, so I would guess that sales growth was about flat. The pizza place most likely will get more interest from the NPR story, than from Facebook. That's because it's free to "like" someone or something, so people do not value a "like" over actually forking over cash. Also, Facebook ads are about par with AdWords. Google makes a good chunk of cash on AdWords, but nowhere near the realm that Facebook will need to justify its IPO.
So that is to say, that maybe Facebook will be as succsessful as Google and maybe a little more so. However, because Facebook is coming out of the gate with such a high IPO, they are banking on being eleven times more successful than Google every year. I find that extremly hard to swallow. However, once Facebook is public they'll need to start spending like crazy to prove that their system works. There are a lot of critics about how successful their model is and it won't be easily overcomed.
In my opinion, and its just that my opinion, Facebook has set themselves up for failure with their public offer. Eventually investors are not going to see the insanely high super returns they are expecting from a $100 billion company. Once they start loosing investors and thus capital, Facebook is going to be under a lot of pressure to return to a $100 billion company. The type of pressure that usually breaks companies rather then build them back up, usually the CEO brings some calm to the situation and total company collaspe can be avoided. I just don't see Mark Zuckerberg being that slick of a guy to be savy enough to convince business types that everything is under control. Panic will ensue and crap will hit the fan. Where it goes form there is anybody's guess.
Why not simply not use it (as I have chosen to do)?
Some of us do not have the fortune to pick and choose what we do and do not like. Instead our job is a function of what we are told to do and how well we meet that goal that is set by people other than ourselves. You should consider yourself lucky if you have such a position where you can pick and choose what to use.
(yet could be used via notepad and the command line, if one were persistent enough)
Feel free to try XAML via notepad if you like. I assure you that you will find yourself quickly mired in all of the problems that have arisen from the back and forth that Microsoft has made of the markup language. The explicit reason given for most of these changes is, "to make it easier for IDEs like Visual Studio to use the language." It is the logic that we should craft a language to make it easier to implement in an IDE that I cite as Microsoft's goal to link VS and.NET together. Microsoft has gone forward with the notion that you will be using an IDE from step one when considering changes to the.NET platform. Head over to MSDN and you'll see no shortage of proof.
Static typing isn't a programmer training tool.
I never said that it was a training tool. It's there to catch bad habits of casting. Many people would logically think that a double can be cast to string with no need to rely on API conversions. We have boxing and unboxing to thank for that. However, people get so hung up on.NET's boxing method that they think that it logically applies to custom types. Which in some cases, it does if we are talking about a simple structure with primitive types. However, if you want to take a class and do boxing, either invoke the complex methods required to do so, or invoke the wizard to create that boiler plate for you. However, with any boiler plate, if you create your own list, BST, or other data structure you cannot rely on the boiler plate because it will not go deep enough into the structure to carry out whatever your intended wishes were. If you head over to MSDN, they are totally silent on this fact. Instead the argument is just use the built-in structures within the.NET platform, because they have the required meta-data for Visual Studio to hook into.
That's bunk thinking in my opinion. However, I guess you are content with just using anything that is pre-fabricated for you. However, not all of us have jobs that allow us to just sit there and put puzzle pieces together and call it a day.
So yeah, you may have an argument if we were strictly talking about a world where everyone is expected to cookie cutter program. However, most programmer are tasked with much more than that. The.NET platform and VS is designed, ground up, to be a cookie cutter platform and if you want to go outside of that and Visual Studio does not provide a tool for it, then woe be to you. The normal approach it to build a library that is central for the functions that you rely on, but the.NET platform makes it near impossible to build those because there are so many hoops that have to be jumped through, those hoops exist because Microsoft figured there was a need for those to make it easier to use the structure in question with an IDE. That kind of rationale is suspect at best.
At any rate it doesn't change the minds of the people at my work from thinking VS is the best stuff since sliced bread, and I doubt the same arguments would sway you either for pretty much the exact same reasons they won't give up VS. Visual Studio is indeed a nice IDE but it's fault is its hubris. It is so good at what Microsoft intended it to do, that it sucks at anything that Microsoft didn't foresee. That's my chief comp
The Entity Framework isn't integral at all to.NET.
See point that it was an example. Read into that, if you may, that it is a single element of a set. Therefore conclude, that I have a list of items "that depends on VS" but as oppose to getting into an exhaustive list of that set, I have merely stated a single element from the list. I am doubtful that anyone would care for a post detailing how tightly coupled VS and.NET are to each other. If you wish to seek such a list, by all means, Google is your friend. You will find that I am not alone in this thinking that VS and.NET are nearly inseparable.
That said, there are cases where.NET can be used independent of VS, but the use cases are slim or for platforms that are not Microsoft made. The logic behind most of that is the XML cruft that is required for a lot of functionality related to anything within the System.Data namespace. But an even better example would be XAML and anything that has to do with the mess that is WPF. Attempting to do anything with those two outside of VS is simply a task of frustration.
However, you may not be fully convinced of my position, so therefore let us then move to a comparison of EF to something like JPA. EF requiring complex tangles of XML versus JPA which relies on annotations. However, let's look at EF 4.2 and go from there. Here we have three different models for coding.
1. Database first model - This is the original bad boy. If you look in any documentation from MSDN you will see that every single thing points to "use the wizard". This coding style has been in the.NET platform since v1.0 days. However, you might point out that there are other "wizards" out there. You would be correct. There are tools that developed for other DB vendors (other than Microsoft) to that the CSDL and MSL are created for you. However, they require Visual Studio, but that's not the point. The point being is why there is even a CSDL and MSL required for such a simple task... You will shortly see that Microsoft "fixed" the method by the Code first model in the EF, however, I would be doing a disservice to you if I just said that the Code first model fixes everything.
2. Model first model - This horrifically titled model is new to.NET since the EF v4.0 days. I won't bore you with details because little in the way was fixed in the line of VS to.NET inter-dependence. Go wherever you like and you will find, "use the wizard" as the only choice if you so choose to code with this model.
3. Code first model - This model brings.NET in line with JPA 2.0 in most respects and if you were to ever use EF, I would highly suggest you stick to this model, it is much cleaner and nicer to work with, but alas, it is more manual and I would hate to increase the difficulty of your job. This model is new to.NET in EF v4.1 but PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS MODEL UNDER 4.1 use EF v4.2 or better and you will have little to worry about. (I'll spare you why you shouldn't use v4.1 for code first models, but it has a lot to do with commits, rollbacks, and transactions using that version versus the other version) See I'm getting off topic here, apologies. The code first model would be the first break from the VS +.NET dependency if it were not for the insane config file. Oh ho! You might say as you currently peruse the code first walk through, the config file addition is only but six lines and three elements of XML, that is way better than JPA with it's persistence.xml file! Guilty, I would say, yes the config file is indeed much simpler, however, for Microsoft DB products only. For you see, if you choose to use another DB vendor, prepare thyself for Step 7 in the walk-though! Setting an Initialization Strategy For you see, if you use another DB vendor, you will need VS 2010 and a pl
but it seems like there is no rational reason for Nokia to leave Apple out of the fun
You typically sue people who most likely will loose or settle first, then go after big boys after a precedent has been set. You especially sue bigger losers than yourself if your company is going down the toilet because you bet the farm on WP7, and now that bet looks like it is coming to bite you in the ass like a tick at a blood bank.
HTC is down from the last go round with Apple, good chance they'll settle. RIM, really is anyone not suing RIM? I'm completely blank on ViewSonic.
I can't help but to ask. 5mw may harm you, but that's with the medium being air. Wouldn't that level change when the medium is water? In other words, wouldn't more of the laser light become diffused over a shorter distance as compared to the same laser but in air?
their developer tools have always been first class
This is what I have noticed about Visual Studio users, and I will preface the list with this; it may be that someone just doesn't know how to use the tool, but with C#, VB.NET, C++.NET, etc... Microsoft has very clearly made the.NET platform to be developed using their tools, so knowing how to use the tool (Visual Studio) is a key requirement to knowing how to program anything for.NET (which has a lot of cons in my opinion but that's getting off topic.) [PS: In case you need an example of how absolutely dependent.NET and Visual Studio are to each other look no further than the Entity Framework]
1. Visual studio users tend to be autocomplete hunters. I agree autocomplete is a handy tool, but lack of knowledge of the.NET APIs is usually rampant with Visual Studio people.
2. Auto-generated boiler plates *usually* makes it to production and *usually* remains until version three or four. Again, it's handy that a lot of work is done for you, in this fast pace world we live in, it can be a life saver. However, sometimes it's time to retire the boiler plate code for something that is a better fit for your solution. Visual Studio coders tend to not even realize that this is going on behind the GUI.
3. Kill diff and commit new. I can't put my finger on it, but Visual Studio coders then to forego working on already committed branches and just start fresh every time or at least every other time. For the life of me, I simply don't understand why they don't tend to follow the "dozen little gears" approach... (which leads me into)
4. If Visual Studio didn't break up the functionality, VS coders tend to cobble everything into a handful of classes. Coders tend to have a single class that handles every, single, stinking, GUI event and possible combination thereof. Really?! Why?!
5. Visual Studio coders don't seem to build components, if they do, the component isn't very focused on task. Usually the library is something along the lines of "AllTheUsefulFunctionsThatWeKeepTypingOverAndOverForOurCompany.dll" As opposed to say, "FunctionsForASingleCustomer.dll" This makes rebuilding libraries, for me, a pain in the ass because every department has to approve the changes. I have no idea why Visual Studio coders feel that everything plus a chicken is a great idea for everything and the chicken?!
6. Exceptions! Catch them please! No one is immune to this, granted. However the forgot to catch an exception for Visual Studio coders is quite higher than say the guys that write C++ or Java and use Eclipse.
I've worked at several places coding on everything from.NET, Java, RPG, C++, etc... However, the people who use Visual Studio tend to have (for lack of a better term) an addiction to the "Visual" part of VS. Now there are a couple of people I've met that have written some quality code using VS, but I'd hate myself trying to convince myself that I wasn't seeing a pattern here.
I like Visual Studio but the most frustrating thing is it always seems to get in my way, it always wants to think for me (usually doing a pretty bad job at it), and it really does so many things behind the scene that it tends to breed a "ignorance is bliss" attitude that carries over into actual user written code.
Now before you pick up the rock and bash my head in!! I totally understand that VS is just the tool. I get that and trust me, some of the coders that I'm talking about are some of my best drinking buddies, so I really don't want to think badly of them. But I just keep seeing this wherever I go when it comes to Visual Studio coders, not just my buddies, but others too. I can't help but feel that, "if the soldiers keep dying, it may not be the soldiers' fault." Like wise, if the code keeps coming from VS, in an ugly state, it may not be the coders' fault.
Okay I'm ready to hear reasons as to why I'm just crazy and dreaming all this up.
Agreed, there was nothing said about oily substance on the glass. I fear that, though they may have found a case for repelling water (for when I want to break out my tablet or HDTV in the pouring rain), body oil and what not will still be ever so wonderful to the screen for those who wish to see your swipe pattern (which you shouldn't be using, unless you use a stylus or carry a cloth with you.)
I have no problem with plugging the hole. What I do cite as a concern is that you have adults trying to reason with a four year old at an adult level, which is idiotic at best. To a four year old yelling is about the worst thing you can do, yelling and pat-down and a bunch of people swarming around you to a four year old is worst than the worst thing that could happen to you. There was ample oppritunity to bring the noise down a touch, ten minutes is a lot of time in airport time.
I understand that TSA needs to move a lot of people, really fast, but they also need to understand that the office is making special rules for people under twelve for a reason. They don't understand things at the same level older people understand things. Four year olds and such have to be shown what is going on, what's to be expected, and so on, in short they need to be taught the entire rigamaroll in situ. That takes time and calm and neither of those were exhibited in this instance.
Again, plug holes where you need to, but understand that TSA needs to bring it down a level when it comes to kids. You can still screen them but it is going to take time and lots of level headedness. None which are qualities that TSA agents seem to exhibit. If that's not acceptable by society as a whole (why should I wait for someone else's f*** kid! Blah blah blah) then maybe that person needs to write congress to ban twelve and under from being at the airport. Because I've heard all kinds of arguments and none of them seem to make sense in a country where we still allow children on planes. Accept that kids will delay things a lot, or take kids out of airports and deal with the knowledge that you live in such a country.
PS: That last bit wasn't aimed at you, just some a-hole I know that started a fuss when a group of five kids made him late for his plane in Chicago.
This also means co-workers no longer ask you how to do things with Office because it's easy to figure it out themselves
Wha?! I've never known a co-worker to just figure anything out for themselves. Usually upgrades to Office 2007 and 2010 and met with people ready to behead me for upgrading them. They lack the time to "figure it out themselves" because they have work to do, that's not getting done because there is no way to get what they used to know done.
The "exposes the wealth of Office" argument is a good one, if people weren't busy trying to get work done. The Ribbon change might expose functionality but no one realizes it. It's just like how people might see a missing child walk into a store and never know it, unless they were specifically looking for that child. Unless, someone knows exactly the function they are wanting to use, the ribbon will not help them find it.
Seriously, the grand-parent summarized all the good that the ribbon could possibly have.
Except for the bazillion times the user wants to remove my name from the header and put theirs and suddenly there isn't a background.
But boy you hit the nail on the head on this technique, by all means it's hackish at best, and goes to show some of the quirkiness that one has to learn to use the Microsoft Office suite like a pro. I'd dare say that combine the quirks one must learn and the constant tossing of every feature in every single spot drowning you out, MS Office is the PHP of productivity software.
Not if the document you are working on is around 2.4GB in size. Actually that is quite common for some of the technical manuals we write. GASP! an IT department that writes documentation! Now you know I'm lying;-)
I think the problem is that people just don't want / cannot be smart about using technology and thus you feel that the makers need to step in an make this stuff safe for us. The unfortunate part about all of this is that we now live in a world were it is perfectly okay to hand someone a device that can ruin them financially, expose every single person they know, track their every movement, and/or watch what they are doing at the time or at least listen in. Somehow, we don't feel that there is any obligation to include a manual, require training, own a license to use such a device, or anything along those lines. No sir, we'll just keep handing these fuckers out to any idiot that wants something shiny. It's a shame that Apple didn't get into the gun business, a least we'd be a couple of idiots less on this planet.
Slashdot Mirror
But "real data" includes logins
Depends on the login. If it is something I care about then the Internet won't be the only channel in the line of communications. The system that I ssh with at work uses three channels of communication, the Internet being one of them, but the others are there to carry information and authenticate the other channels, the system is able to tell if a MITM attack is happening since the packets on the Internet channel will start getting out of sync (basically a different channel asks the remote host to switch certs mid conversation, the MITM never knows about the switch up since they aren't listening to that channel, the host requests more information but the information is sent using the old cert, not the one that was suppose to be switched to, thus you can see the MITM didn't get the notice). Standard emails use two step verification and those that I truly wish to talk to have shared keys for communication. Just two step verification which is offered by GMail is usually enough to keep 99% of hackers out of your inbox. Using an email client that has integrated GPG and using two step disk encryption for your inbox (that's pass phrase and USB stick authentication) will protect you from 99.999% of the crackers out there. All of this is very easy for the home consumer to get.
The Internet isn't the only way to communicate (OTP, SMS, private fiber, usb sticks, shortwave radio, PSTN, and a host of other methods). The more people rely on the Internet as their single channel of communication, the more they open themselves to attack. It's just like anything, having only a single way of doing stuff makes it easy to get attacked.
List what you think will keep you safe, and someone will prove you wrong.
The first thing I learned about keeping yourself safe from the Internet is to make your computer worthless. Someone is always going to break in, there is no stopping that, but if the information that they gain is absolutely worthless, they've really gained nothing. When someone finally does invade my computer and takes all my information, they'll find a whole lot of information that will direct them to someone who doesn't really exist, a credit card that has $6.00 in the bank, a tax return with invalid SSN, a web browser with two minutes of history, a bunch of photos of people I don't know and pictures of fruit and my hand giving them the finger, and a whole slew of things meant to get their attention, like weakly encrypted files, files that sound important and so on. All of it in an attempt to get them to gather the data, I want them to have. They won't get bandwidth or CPU cycles, I kept pretty detailed logs on my Internet traffic. I'd notice if I saw my CPU working 3% harder than it should at a given time, or if I saw a bump in traffic to addresses I don't visit.
I don't want anyone on my system, but if they do get on it, then I want them to have the data on it. All of the *real* data is elsewhere or never touches a computer.
Okay I'm ready for a rebuttal.
I'm not sure about the full body email search, but if you wanted to do that wouldn't you want semantic desktop? I guess what you're asking is how to have such an option in KMail without having to include the entire kitchen sink that is the semantic desktop? I think you can pick and choose the services that nepomuk uses, but I would be out of my element on that since I just turn the whole thing off. If there isn't a way to filter nepomuk to only be used for KMail, then that would be a great request.
Yes you can remove the semantic desktop stuff. Gentoo has a compile option that you can include that will specifically build KDE sans the semantic desktop.
How would good computing habits stop, or even just phase, a virus of this magnitude?
You've missed the point of my post. I was not putting good habits on the level of this virus in question. In fact, I never said the flame virus at any point in my post. The flame virus has nothing to do with my post. You have insert subject matter into my post that was never there, nor was it anywhere closely related to what I posted, meant, or could be possibly derived from my post. In short, my post said absolutely nothing about the virus that is talked about in the news story, nor was there anything in my post that lead to that conclusion. I admonish your interjection that I had ever said anything related to the virus in this story as there could be nothing further from the point and subject matter of my post.
Now that I hope we have made it crystal clear that I am not talking about the flame virus.
Anti-virus companies do not deal with real virus', they deal with run of the mill script kiddies and other things that good computing habits can prevent. Therefore I doubt the value of any AV company's opinion or product. Since it is non-news that they couldn't help anyone when faced with a real threat.
There I've compacted my post for you. Perhaps that will help your comprehension, or if you like I'll put it into a single sentence for you.
AV companies are like mall security, why the bring them up when the subject is a war?
Better?
it could be sending out your credit card into and be a proxy to everything without telling you
Don't use your credit card for online purchases, or in my case, setup a secondary bank backed CC that has limited access to your primary funds. Move funding into the secondary as needed. Even if they get the CC number I use on the Internet, at best they are leaving with $11.38 at the current moment.
or if someone is running a MITM on you
Long story short, there are connections where I care about MITM and those that I don't care about them. The ones where I don't care are because even if there was a MITM attack, they've gain absolutely nothing that they couldn't have already gained without attacking me. The ones where I do care, the connection is verified using a method not attached to the Internet. Most MITM attacks are simply watching the Internet traffic and are unaware that second and third channel communications are going on to verify the Internet connection.
how sure are you that not a single signing key to any package on your system is compromised
Again, long story short. Even if someone sent me a bad package, they'll gain nothing as nothing is stored on the machine and the machine has limited access to the information that I'm currently using. The state the machine was in when I get to it, is the state I leave the machine in. As far as network and CPU resources, simply checking your logs will show you any spikes that are out of the usual. A home PC has very little objective value. Usually CC, personal, contact, web history, etc or CPU and bandwidth. Not very difficult to protect that information if you do not keep it on your machine and check your logs. Targeted attacks to get deeper information would spend more money on the attack then on what they gained, I'm okay with the idea that the ROI for the robber is in the negative. That'll teach them.
Also that's a little disingenuous, most distros use one or two keys to sign all of the packages. So I would have to check one or two keys at most. Not exactly a huge sample size. Secondly, someone did hijack a key on Fedora at one point. It was easy to see that the key was jacked, and to check binaries at the tree in large volumes for differences. No differences were found, but if there were, code reviews would be possible to ensure that new builds wouldn't add in non-reviewed code. A signing key getting jacked isn't exactly a huge problem so long as the binary matches binaries built from reviewed code (aka checksums). MD5 has the ability to have collision which is why distros provide SHA and MD5 checksums, to mitigate that risk. A jacked key is only of value if no one finds out about it and bad code can get pushed to systems without no one knowing. So jacked keys require a pretty heafty level of keeping quiet and silently moving updates in while no one is looking. Given that usually a good number of people are watching this, jacked keys are poor for targets at the mass. You'd want to use a hijacked private key at a very small target, because as soon as someone sounds the alarm, your key is usless. The fewer the eyes, the less the chance of getting caught. However, I do indeed check my binaries aganst checksums to make sure that updated packages match known good packages, so I'd be a tripwire for this kind of attack, they may hit me, but they would loose all value in their key. Again, the ROI would be negative on their side because they could have done a lot of damage, but if they hit the one guy that's paranoid and goes back and checks the binarys on every update, boom all that damage they could of done is gone.
I've not held much faith for anti-virus companies. Never was I under the idea that AV software would stop a *real* virus. To me, anti-virus software is just a way to keep the script kiddies and adware ActiveX controls off a system. Good computing habits preclude the need for AV software. Just my two cents.
Who here read the title and thought they were talking about the background music during a boss fight?
The Koreans dispute the name, mainly the South Koreans. Like all naming disputes, it doesn't matter the lands that border them, it's mostly a political and pride issue. Koreans dislike the name because the name for the body of water arose when Korea was under Japaneese rule, so it is kind of a reminder to them of that period. Not all things in this world are based on sound reasoning. Just a hint of research on your part would have clued you in on this, however, I have the fortune to actually remember this point from high school days. Ah, memories!
and they each average one movie every other day, that's 248gb.
Geez, who has time for that? Usually the "family of four" here all watch the same movie at the same time. Add in the fact that most of our time is running between which kid has a game tonight and who's cooking dinner and who's clean which part of the house. We're lucky to get one or two movies via Netflix per every other week.
That's before doing anything via a VPN to work, backing up your data remotely with any of a number of services, streaming radio, streaming music (mog.com, etc), watching youtube, playing videogames
My company pays for a seperate connection to the Internet for VPN access. Maybe we should all push for that. I backup my data to an external hard drive. I'm paranoid so sue me. Whatever happen to just listening to the radio? My kid pulled that crap once at home. They were listening to a local station via the Internet, I asked why the hell he just didn't turn on the radio? Also, why don't cell phones come with FM tuners? They shove BT, wifi, GPS, and cellphone receivers in there, what's one more?! Add in an HDTV tuner to that request too. (No I don't think they should shove a CB tuner in there, but I bet FRS would be really cool!) Videogame usage in the house is pretty minimal, one kid is grounded until December, the other has no interest in videogames, I play Wii but I'm totally asocial, so I steer away from Internet based games. Wife likes "Just Dance" I don't think that the game has an online componet to it.
You are not the average user, by far.
By all accounts, I would be more inclined to believe that your example is not average by far. As most of the families that I have to pretend to like, live roughly the same lifestyle as myself as far as Internet usage goes, and I'm the dweeb they call up to fix their computer when they forget how to bold text in Word. "Hi, yeah I know you're [my son's name]'s father, this is [friend of my son's name]'s mother, and I heard that you are really good with computers... [you get the idea]" So I would dare say I've gotten a little more insight on these people's Internet usage than I'd care to have.
Excellent point! Indeed the Sea of Japan is unlabeled for the exact same reason. The name of the body of water is disputed. You deserve mod points!
It is important to find out why more sales are occuring. Also, from the story, it doesn't sound like they had a huge return, so I would guess that sales growth was about flat. The pizza place most likely will get more interest from the NPR story, than from Facebook. That's because it's free to "like" someone or something, so people do not value a "like" over actually forking over cash. Also, Facebook ads are about par with AdWords. Google makes a good chunk of cash on AdWords, but nowhere near the realm that Facebook will need to justify its IPO.
So that is to say, that maybe Facebook will be as succsessful as Google and maybe a little more so. However, because Facebook is coming out of the gate with such a high IPO, they are banking on being eleven times more successful than Google every year. I find that extremly hard to swallow. However, once Facebook is public they'll need to start spending like crazy to prove that their system works. There are a lot of critics about how successful their model is and it won't be easily overcomed.
In my opinion, and its just that my opinion, Facebook has set themselves up for failure with their public offer. Eventually investors are not going to see the insanely high super returns they are expecting from a $100 billion company. Once they start loosing investors and thus capital, Facebook is going to be under a lot of pressure to return to a $100 billion company. The type of pressure that usually breaks companies rather then build them back up, usually the CEO brings some calm to the situation and total company collaspe can be avoided. I just don't see Mark Zuckerberg being that slick of a guy to be savy enough to convince business types that everything is under control. Panic will ensue and crap will hit the fan. Where it goes form there is anybody's guess.
I wish you peace and luck in your endeavors.
Sure no problem. Same to you as well.
Why not simply not use it (as I have chosen to do)?
Some of us do not have the fortune to pick and choose what we do and do not like. Instead our job is a function of what we are told to do and how well we meet that goal that is set by people other than ourselves. You should consider yourself lucky if you have such a position where you can pick and choose what to use.
(yet could be used via notepad and the command line, if one were persistent enough)
Feel free to try XAML via notepad if you like. I assure you that you will find yourself quickly mired in all of the problems that have arisen from the back and forth that Microsoft has made of the markup language. The explicit reason given for most of these changes is, "to make it easier for IDEs like Visual Studio to use the language." It is the logic that we should craft a language to make it easier to implement in an IDE that I cite as Microsoft's goal to link VS and .NET together. Microsoft has gone forward with the notion that you will be using an IDE from step one when considering changes to the .NET platform. Head over to MSDN and you'll see no shortage of proof.
Static typing isn't a programmer training tool.
I never said that it was a training tool. It's there to catch bad habits of casting. Many people would logically think that a double can be cast to string with no need to rely on API conversions. We have boxing and unboxing to thank for that. However, people get so hung up on .NET's boxing method that they think that it logically applies to custom types. Which in some cases, it does if we are talking about a simple structure with primitive types. However, if you want to take a class and do boxing, either invoke the complex methods required to do so, or invoke the wizard to create that boiler plate for you. However, with any boiler plate, if you create your own list, BST, or other data structure you cannot rely on the boiler plate because it will not go deep enough into the structure to carry out whatever your intended wishes were. If you head over to MSDN, they are totally silent on this fact. Instead the argument is just use the built-in structures within the .NET platform, because they have the required meta-data for Visual Studio to hook into.
.NET platform and VS is designed, ground up, to be a cookie cutter platform and if you want to go outside of that and Visual Studio does not provide a tool for it, then woe be to you. The normal approach it to build a library that is central for the functions that you rely on, but the .NET platform makes it near impossible to build those because there are so many hoops that have to be jumped through, those hoops exist because Microsoft figured there was a need for those to make it easier to use the structure in question with an IDE. That kind of rationale is suspect at best.
That's bunk thinking in my opinion. However, I guess you are content with just using anything that is pre-fabricated for you. However, not all of us have jobs that allow us to just sit there and put puzzle pieces together and call it a day.
So yeah, you may have an argument if we were strictly talking about a world where everyone is expected to cookie cutter program. However, most programmer are tasked with much more than that. The
At any rate it doesn't change the minds of the people at my work from thinking VS is the best stuff since sliced bread, and I doubt the same arguments would sway you either for pretty much the exact same reasons they won't give up VS. Visual Studio is indeed a nice IDE but it's fault is its hubris. It is so good at what Microsoft intended it to do, that it sucks at anything that Microsoft didn't foresee. That's my chief comp
The Entity Framework isn't integral at all to .NET.
See point that it was an example. Read into that, if you may, that it is a single element of a set. Therefore conclude, that I have a list of items "that depends on VS" but as oppose to getting into an exhaustive list of that set, I have merely stated a single element from the list. I am doubtful that anyone would care for a post detailing how tightly coupled VS and .NET are to each other. If you wish to seek such a list, by all means, Google is your friend. You will find that I am not alone in this thinking that VS and .NET are nearly inseparable.
.NET can be used independent of VS, but the use cases are slim or for platforms that are not Microsoft made. The logic behind most of that is the XML cruft that is required for a lot of functionality related to anything within the System.Data namespace. But an even better example would be XAML and anything that has to do with the mess that is WPF. Attempting to do anything with those two outside of VS is simply a task of frustration.
.NET platform since v1.0 days. However, you might point out that there are other "wizards" out there. You would be correct. There are tools that developed for other DB vendors (other than Microsoft) to that the CSDL and MSL are created for you. However, they require Visual Studio, but that's not the point. The point being is why there is even a CSDL and MSL required for such a simple task... You will shortly see that Microsoft "fixed" the method by the Code first model in the EF, however, I would be doing a disservice to you if I just said that the Code first model fixes everything.
.NET since the EF v4.0 days. I won't bore you with details because little in the way was fixed in the line of VS to .NET inter-dependence. Go wherever you like and you will find, "use the wizard" as the only choice if you so choose to code with this model.
.NET in line with JPA 2.0 in most respects and if you were to ever use EF, I would highly suggest you stick to this model, it is much cleaner and nicer to work with, but alas, it is more manual and I would hate to increase the difficulty of your job. This model is new to .NET in EF v4.1 but PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS MODEL UNDER 4.1 use EF v4.2 or better and you will have little to worry about. (I'll spare you why you shouldn't use v4.1 for code first models, but it has a lot to do with commits, rollbacks, and transactions using that version versus the other version) See I'm getting off topic here, apologies. The code first model would be the first break from the VS + .NET dependency if it were not for the insane config file. Oh ho! You might say as you currently peruse the code first walk through, the config file addition is only but six lines and three elements of XML, that is way better than JPA with it's persistence.xml file! Guilty, I would say, yes the config file is indeed much simpler, however, for Microsoft DB products only. For you see, if you choose to use another DB vendor, prepare thyself for Step 7 in the walk-though! Setting an Initialization Strategy For you see, if you use another DB vendor, you will need VS 2010 and a pl
That said, there are cases where
However, you may not be fully convinced of my position, so therefore let us then move to a comparison of EF to something like JPA. EF requiring complex tangles of XML versus JPA which relies on annotations. However, let's look at EF 4.2 and go from there. Here we have three different models for coding.
1. Database first model - This is the original bad boy. If you look in any documentation from MSDN you will see that every single thing points to "use the wizard". This coding style has been in the
2. Model first model - This horrifically titled model is new to
3. Code first model - This model brings
but it seems like there is no rational reason for Nokia to leave Apple out of the fun
You typically sue people who most likely will loose or settle first, then go after big boys after a precedent has been set. You especially sue bigger losers than yourself if your company is going down the toilet because you bet the farm on WP7, and now that bet looks like it is coming to bite you in the ass like a tick at a blood bank.
HTC is down from the last go round with Apple, good chance they'll settle. RIM, really is anyone not suing RIM? I'm completely blank on ViewSonic.
I guess its a good time to be a lawyer.
I can't help but to ask. 5mw may harm you, but that's with the medium being air. Wouldn't that level change when the medium is water? In other words, wouldn't more of the laser light become diffused over a shorter distance as compared to the same laser but in air?
their developer tools have always been first class
This is what I have noticed about Visual Studio users, and I will preface the list with this; it may be that someone just doesn't know how to use the tool, but with C#, VB.NET, C++.NET, etc... Microsoft has very clearly made the .NET platform to be developed using their tools, so knowing how to use the tool (Visual Studio) is a key requirement to knowing how to program anything for .NET (which has a lot of cons in my opinion but that's getting off topic.) [PS: In case you need an example of how absolutely dependent .NET and Visual Studio are to each other look no further than the Entity Framework]
.NET APIs is usually rampant with Visual Studio people.
.NET, Java, RPG, C++, etc... However, the people who use Visual Studio tend to have (for lack of a better term) an addiction to the "Visual" part of VS. Now there are a couple of people I've met that have written some quality code using VS, but I'd hate myself trying to convince myself that I wasn't seeing a pattern here.
1. Visual studio users tend to be autocomplete hunters. I agree autocomplete is a handy tool, but lack of knowledge of the
2. Auto-generated boiler plates *usually* makes it to production and *usually* remains until version three or four. Again, it's handy that a lot of work is done for you, in this fast pace world we live in, it can be a life saver. However, sometimes it's time to retire the boiler plate code for something that is a better fit for your solution. Visual Studio coders tend to not even realize that this is going on behind the GUI.
3. Kill diff and commit new. I can't put my finger on it, but Visual Studio coders then to forego working on already committed branches and just start fresh every time or at least every other time. For the life of me, I simply don't understand why they don't tend to follow the "dozen little gears" approach... (which leads me into)
4. If Visual Studio didn't break up the functionality, VS coders tend to cobble everything into a handful of classes. Coders tend to have a single class that handles every, single, stinking, GUI event and possible combination thereof. Really?! Why?!
5. Visual Studio coders don't seem to build components, if they do, the component isn't very focused on task. Usually the library is something along the lines of "AllTheUsefulFunctionsThatWeKeepTypingOverAndOverForOurCompany.dll" As opposed to say, "FunctionsForASingleCustomer.dll" This makes rebuilding libraries, for me, a pain in the ass because every department has to approve the changes. I have no idea why Visual Studio coders feel that everything plus a chicken is a great idea for everything and the chicken?!
6. Exceptions! Catch them please! No one is immune to this, granted. However the forgot to catch an exception for Visual Studio coders is quite higher than say the guys that write C++ or Java and use Eclipse.
I've worked at several places coding on everything from
I like Visual Studio but the most frustrating thing is it always seems to get in my way, it always wants to think for me (usually doing a pretty bad job at it), and it really does so many things behind the scene that it tends to breed a "ignorance is bliss" attitude that carries over into actual user written code.
Now before you pick up the rock and bash my head in!! I totally understand that VS is just the tool. I get that and trust me, some of the coders that I'm talking about are some of my best drinking buddies, so I really don't want to think badly of them. But I just keep seeing this wherever I go when it comes to Visual Studio coders, not just my buddies, but others too. I can't help but feel that, "if the soldiers keep dying, it may not be the soldiers' fault." Like wise, if the code keeps coming from VS, in an ugly state, it may not be the coders' fault.
Okay I'm ready to hear reasons as to why I'm just crazy and dreaming all this up.
If they melt too acidic...
What? Doesn't everyone have this problem?!
Agreed, there was nothing said about oily substance on the glass. I fear that, though they may have found a case for repelling water (for when I want to break out my tablet or HDTV in the pouring rain), body oil and what not will still be ever so wonderful to the screen for those who wish to see your swipe pattern (which you shouldn't be using, unless you use a stylus or carry a cloth with you.)
I have no problem with plugging the hole. What I do cite as a concern is that you have adults trying to reason with a four year old at an adult level, which is idiotic at best. To a four year old yelling is about the worst thing you can do, yelling and pat-down and a bunch of people swarming around you to a four year old is worst than the worst thing that could happen to you. There was ample oppritunity to bring the noise down a touch, ten minutes is a lot of time in airport time.
I understand that TSA needs to move a lot of people, really fast, but they also need to understand that the office is making special rules for people under twelve for a reason. They don't understand things at the same level older people understand things. Four year olds and such have to be shown what is going on, what's to be expected, and so on, in short they need to be taught the entire rigamaroll in situ. That takes time and calm and neither of those were exhibited in this instance.
Again, plug holes where you need to, but understand that TSA needs to bring it down a level when it comes to kids. You can still screen them but it is going to take time and lots of level headedness. None which are qualities that TSA agents seem to exhibit. If that's not acceptable by society as a whole (why should I wait for someone else's f*** kid! Blah blah blah) then maybe that person needs to write congress to ban twelve and under from being at the airport. Because I've heard all kinds of arguments and none of them seem to make sense in a country where we still allow children on planes. Accept that kids will delay things a lot, or take kids out of airports and deal with the knowledge that you live in such a country.
PS: That last bit wasn't aimed at you, just some a-hole I know that started a fuss when a group of five kids made him late for his plane in Chicago.
This also means co-workers no longer ask you how to do things with Office because it's easy to figure it out themselves
Wha?! I've never known a co-worker to just figure anything out for themselves. Usually upgrades to Office 2007 and 2010 and met with people ready to behead me for upgrading them. They lack the time to "figure it out themselves" because they have work to do, that's not getting done because there is no way to get what they used to know done.
The "exposes the wealth of Office" argument is a good one, if people weren't busy trying to get work done. The Ribbon change might expose functionality but no one realizes it. It's just like how people might see a missing child walk into a store and never know it, unless they were specifically looking for that child. Unless, someone knows exactly the function they are wanting to use, the ribbon will not help them find it.
Seriously, the grand-parent summarized all the good that the ribbon could possibly have.
Except for the bazillion times the user wants to remove my name from the header and put theirs and suddenly there isn't a background.
But boy you hit the nail on the head on this technique, by all means it's hackish at best, and goes to show some of the quirkiness that one has to learn to use the Microsoft Office suite like a pro. I'd dare say that combine the quirks one must learn and the constant tossing of every feature in every single spot drowning you out, MS Office is the PHP of productivity software.
Not if the document you are working on is around 2.4GB in size. Actually that is quite common for some of the technical manuals we write. GASP! an IT department that writes documentation! Now you know I'm lying ;-)
Google needs to lock things down
I think the problem is that people just don't want / cannot be smart about using technology and thus you feel that the makers need to step in an make this stuff safe for us. The unfortunate part about all of this is that we now live in a world were it is perfectly okay to hand someone a device that can ruin them financially, expose every single person they know, track their every movement, and/or watch what they are doing at the time or at least listen in. Somehow, we don't feel that there is any obligation to include a manual, require training, own a license to use such a device, or anything along those lines. No sir, we'll just keep handing these fuckers out to any idiot that wants something shiny. It's a shame that Apple didn't get into the gun business, a least we'd be a couple of idiots less on this planet.