Yes Windows isn't the most secure environment in the world, but any intelligent user taking reasonable precautions doesn't have much to worry about. The reason there are so many virii, malware, etc for Windows is because there are so many Windows boxes out there. Put Fedora or Mandriva on 90% of the desktops and laptops in the world, and see how soon before there are Linux virii. The most insecure thing in Windows is the user. Social engineering, ineptitude, and sheer stupidity can bring down the most stable OS, even DOS.
People rant about how Windows was designed to be insecure, and, in a manner of speaking, that's true. Windows 9x was designed for easy conectivity. Networking and the internet was exploded around them, and they made a conscience decision to write the OS "just work" as much as possible. Fastforward a 5-10 years, and we see that that might not have been the best approach. Hindsight is 20/20. Can we say that MS is evil/inept because they made the wrong choice? Was IBM evil/inept for trying to implement MCA architecture? Was Churchill evil/inept for trying to stop a second world war with appeasement? It's easy to be a "Monday night quarterback"
Does Apple's warranty cover water damage? I know Verizon's warranty for cell phones doesn't. For that, you need to purchase insurance when you buy it. After my phone fell into a bowl of water, I was in a line of 10 people with water-damaged phones being told, one-by-one, SOL
*disclaimer -- I haven't tried the OO.o 2.0 beta (technically 1.9) yet, I've only used 1.1.4 and whatever version was current in 2002.*
In my office, we use Word and Excel, a lot. I regularly use 5 spreadsheets totaling 15MB in size (one is 10MB). Fear of loosing something (and not noticing it) has kept us from trying other office suites or even upgrading from Office 97.
That's the minor of the two issues however. IIRC, OpenOffice doesn't even have any OLE Automation, so I can't call Calc from Writer to grab a value in a spreadsheet and paste it into my document.
Further, MS Office uses VBA for it's macros. I do a lot of macro work, and some of my macros are relatively complex--I semi-automate form genration. One is about 6 pages of code and has 5 UserForms.
OpenOffice uses a non-visual BASIC for it's macros. I don't have anyway to port my more advanced macros even if I wanted to try. I don't really fault OO.o for this, I doubt MS is going to just hand over VBA for OpenOffice to implement. But for these reasons, OpenOffice isn't an option for me.
Then there's the issue of people who used earlier versions and didn't like it so they won't try newer versions, even if they are better. I have a friend who tried OpenOffice in 2002, and for some reason, SpellCheck wouldn't work for him. He returned to MS Office, and has never looked back.
I have my mother's computer running Windows 98(!) connected to the internet by a DSL line through the routers default (read worthless) firewall settings. She runs gaim for instant messenging where she only chats with people she knows and doesn't open ANY attachments. She uses Firefox to check her gmail and read up on her favorite JAG discussion boards. She uses Word97 set to run no macros for the word proccessing she does. Outlook Express was uninstalled. There is no anti-anything software installed on the computer. To be honest, I don't even remember the last time I patched the system. All this for over 6 months and not a single problem.
Even a relatively insecure environment is good enough if you don't do anything stupid.
I spent 15 minutes signing up for this, signing up for a trial offer, immediately canceling the trial offer, and putting the link in my sig. I think it was 15 minutes of my employer's time well spent. And what's my employer going to do about it, fire me? They're already going out of business (and this started before I was hired, I was hired as a "closer")
It's only a matter of time before someone creates a utility to burn UMD disks with your existing CD burner. Now to just go about getting those blank UMDs...
Who's the bigger fool, the fool who writes a howstuffworks article on a fictional item, or the fool who writes a slashdot article about the howstuffworks article?
Inter - adj : (prefix) between or among or in the midst of
Net - short for network - n. An openwork fabric or structure in which cords, threads, or wires cross at regular intervals, or a system resembling such
The internet was created originally for a few select institutions to share information with each other. The highway was invented my the Romans to quickly move troops from place to place.
Al Gore, Jr. was one of the primary people who saw the potential of it for more with his father's accomplishments in mind. Gore advocated and helped bring about the internet as we now conceive of it, millions of computers interconnected sharing information for anyone to see. He invisioned a more open network that anyone could connect to. He was instrumental in creating the internet as we now use it.
Al Gore, Sr. was one of the primary people who saw the potential of free and open highways connecting people across the country. He was instrumental in creating the interstate highway system as we now use it.
MS has been toughening stance on that. They now require it to be a "non-peripheral" part. Their definition of that term is basically that it can't be a cord/cable and has to be inside the case, or the case itself.
Of course, it's still easy to get around that, by shipping it with an ISA video card you found at the dump.
I guess I should make a similar disclaimer as others are making. I DO NOT have any pirated software on any of my computers. My business machines are running software according to the liscence for the Microsoft Action Pack, and my home computers use legally purchased and liscenced OEM and retail software
a.) XP has to be cracked to get around the on-line activation, so the user is not necessarily getting the same thing MS offers or guarantees.
Actually, pirated copies of XP are the corporate version where activation is disabled because the corporation is installing on 1000's of computers and that would be a HUGE expenditure of time and bandwith to activate each one.
Chatterley says it'll be cheaper and much faster than the 1.5-megabit, T-1 service many businesses currently use.
"(Now), when you go above that speed, it's going to run about $6,000 a month," Chatterley said once he was back inside on firm ground. "What we're introducing today is the delivery of a 6 megabit --versus 1.5 -- data communications solution available for right around $800 a month. (That's) versus the 1.5 (megabit) solution that goes for about $500 a month."
They are saying they will be cheaper than 1.5Mbit access which costs $500/month
Which confuses me greately. Granted my DSL is only half that rate, but I pay $30/month. Cable internet access is ~1.5Mbit and most charge under $50. Maybe they've got a sticky zero key?
According to TFA, Gates read Google's help-wanted listings and saw that Google was looking for people with experience in OS design. Does that mean there might be a GLinux in the works?
Imagine if Google did indeed do this, but took it a step further and made their on WM (GWindow Manager?) so that Google's services were integrated into the distro. Clicking the mail link on the desktop would lead you to GMail (possibly read through their GBrowser). You could do google searches directly from a taskbar widget. You would use Picassa for your pics. A future "GOffice" to word proccessing, spreadsheets, etc. Maybe the future would see a Gplayer?
Oh shit, this is starting to sound like Windows...except it would be free...but you would probably have an AdWords pane in your file manager...I think my head is going to explode now
...a program that officiially excluded me in 2000.
Sounds like you hit max age. Happened to me long ago too and it claims a lot of people. As you have seen, getting Eagle is tough and a lot of work. I work with an Eagle that got in just under the wire, he had to get things signed before he became an alumni.
I made Eagle. I completed my Service Project Feb 25, 1999 and I turned 18 on Feb 26, 1999. The reason I came so close is because I held off on choosing a project for over a year before my Scout Master basically informed me what my project would be. I basically rebuilt a church bathroom. New floor, walls, ceiling, everything. In the end, it took over 250 man-hours to complete, and I personally logged over 100 of them. The other 150 were split between 10 scouts. With the deadline looming, I worked 20 hours straight only taking short breaks and worked through the night. The pressure of a deadline has always been something that gets my blood flowing. I tend to procrastinate for that reason.
I'd love to go back as a leader. But I'm gay. I don't go around trying to convert people. I'm not a threat to children or teenagers. But in 2000, the Supreme Court decided that the Boy Scouts of America have a constitutional right to exclude gay men. So my experience, my enthusiasm for learning and willingness to teach is lost to the next generation.
Beyond the fact that the ruling excludes me, beyond the fact that the ruling excludes period (whereas I favor inclusion), I disagree with the ruling because it excludes one of the very groups of boys that would best be served by scouting. For generations, the boy scouts has been a haven for troubled boys, a place that taught them values and saved them from going down the wrong path. My former scout master is the perfect example. When he was 15, he was arrested for being in a local street gang. The police officer was also a scout master and offered him the choice of joining scouts or going to jail. That changed his life. The only reason he never made Eagle (in only three years!) was because in the 60's swimming wasn't an optional requirement, and he can't swim.
Gay teenagers have the highest suicide rate in the country. In the same socio-economic group, they are more likely to get in trouble than their peers. Speaking as a former closeted gay teenager, there is a lot of shame, and a lack of self-purpose. Without scouting, I wouldn't be where I am today.
I was 8 when the Abyss came out. That's PG-13. I was it in the theater with my uncle. I also watch Clockwork Orange on Cinemax when I was 11.
Of course, on that discussion, it's obligatory to quote George Carlin,
And uh, people much wiser than I have said, I'd rather have my son watch a film with two people making love than two people trying to kill one other. And I of course agree. I wish I know who said it first, and I agree with that. But I would like to take it a step further. I would like to substitute the word fuck, for the word kill in all those movie cliches we grew up with. 'Okay Sheriff, we're gonna fuck ya now. But we're gonna fuck ya slow.' -- George Carlin
If they spent their entire GDP on literacy, housing, healthcare, etc so that every Indian citizen would read, write, have a place to live, and food to eat, they wouldn't have any money for technological programs. At that point, people would lament how "backwards" the country was because it was existing largely on 19th century technology.
Maybe our Coucil was a bit more liberal with its implementation of BSA guidelines, but my troop got a tour permit for everything (short of Eagle projects). If they couldn't get a tour permit for it, the troop committee wouldn't approve it and it wouldn't happen.
I dare say that, even in 1998, when I earned the merit badge, I could do 4b,c,d in under half an hour, especially if there was an offline document to recreate. Maybe I was a little more saavy with computers than most scouts at that age at that time. What certainly doesn't help is that most merit badge counselors accept "prior art." I would routinely fulfill the requirements for a badge, find a counselor, and have him sign off on a blue card (a generic small blue form for merit badge counselors to list the scout's info, the badge, and the requirements to get signed off on. for those still following this thread who were never boy scouts). Or at the class simply say, "yeah, I've done that" and describe it. Since a scout is trustworthy, most conselors I've met will sign off without any proof.
While there are some counselors who go "above and beyond" and really go into the subject matter to ensure the scouts actually learn something, most conselors for this badge would be happy to hear a recitation of the dictionary definitions for the terms in #6.
Maybe the scouts you work with are smarter than normal boy scouts. My brother (who is a Star) knows some basics about hardware and relative pricing, but wouldn't be able to fulfill this requirement without at least reading through a circular. Probably better (for more in-depth-ness) would be instead of comparing prices of a prebuilt HP and a prebuilt Sony in a BestBuy circular, having to do the research to find prices for a motherboard, proc, etc.
I don't know. Maybe I just had a bad experience with this and several other badges. Maybe in this case, I'm too close to the subject to see it objectively. Maybe I'm going out of my way to find faults in a program that officiially excluded me in 2000.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes Windows isn't the most secure environment in the world, but any intelligent user taking reasonable precautions doesn't have much to worry about. The reason there are so many virii, malware, etc for Windows is because there are so many Windows boxes out there. Put Fedora or Mandriva on 90% of the desktops and laptops in the world, and see how soon before there are Linux virii. The most insecure thing in Windows is the user. Social engineering, ineptitude, and sheer stupidity can bring down the most stable OS, even DOS.
People rant about how Windows was designed to be insecure, and, in a manner of speaking, that's true. Windows 9x was designed for easy conectivity. Networking and the internet was exploded around them, and they made a conscience decision to write the OS "just work" as much as possible. Fastforward a 5-10 years, and we see that that might not have been the best approach. Hindsight is 20/20. Can we say that MS is evil/inept because they made the wrong choice? Was IBM evil/inept for trying to implement MCA architecture? Was Churchill evil/inept for trying to stop a second world war with appeasement? It's easy to be a "Monday night quarterback"
Does Apple's warranty cover water damage? I know Verizon's warranty for cell phones doesn't. For that, you need to purchase insurance when you buy it. After my phone fell into a bowl of water, I was in a line of 10 people with water-damaged phones being told, one-by-one, SOL
In my office, we use Word and Excel, a lot. I regularly use 5 spreadsheets totaling 15MB in size (one is 10MB). Fear of loosing something (and not noticing it) has kept us from trying other office suites or even upgrading from Office 97.
That's the minor of the two issues however. IIRC, OpenOffice doesn't even have any OLE Automation, so I can't call Calc from Writer to grab a value in a spreadsheet and paste it into my document.
Further, MS Office uses VBA for it's macros. I do a lot of macro work, and some of my macros are relatively complex--I semi-automate form genration. One is about 6 pages of code and has 5 UserForms.
OpenOffice uses a non-visual BASIC for it's macros. I don't have anyway to port my more advanced macros even if I wanted to try. I don't really fault OO.o for this, I doubt MS is going to just hand over VBA for OpenOffice to implement. But for these reasons, OpenOffice isn't an option for me.
Then there's the issue of people who used earlier versions and didn't like it so they won't try newer versions, even if they are better. I have a friend who tried OpenOffice in 2002, and for some reason, SpellCheck wouldn't work for him. He returned to MS Office, and has never looked back.
Slashdot. News for Nerds. Stuff that's old.
Even a relatively insecure environment is good enough if you don't do anything stupid.
I spent 15 minutes signing up for this, signing up for a trial offer, immediately canceling the trial offer, and putting the link in my sig. I think it was 15 minutes of my employer's time well spent. And what's my employer going to do about it, fire me? They're already going out of business (and this started before I was hired, I was hired as a "closer")
do s pi make backups.
Here, let me clean that up for you:
d s pi make backups.
Didn't hit that backspace key quite enough times there, methinks
It's only a matter of time before someone creates a utility to burn UMD disks with your existing CD burner. Now to just go about getting those blank UMDs...
Every PSP can read it, how much more universal can you get?
Added to the fact that Sony may opening up the UMD format so that black market blank UMDs could be available, it very well could be in the future
so.. comment about a comment about a ... carry the one ... that's me isn't it?
Yep, 'fraid so.
Who's the bigger fool, the fool who writes a howstuffworks article on a fictional item, or the fool who writes a slashdot article about the howstuffworks article?
Inter - adj : (prefix) between or among or in the midst of
Net - short for network - n. An openwork fabric or structure in which cords, threads, or wires cross at regular intervals, or a system resembling such
The internet was created originally for a few select institutions to share information with each other. The highway was invented my the Romans to quickly move troops from place to place.
Al Gore, Jr. was one of the primary people who saw the potential of it for more with his father's accomplishments in mind. Gore advocated and helped bring about the internet as we now conceive of it, millions of computers interconnected sharing information for anyone to see. He invisioned a more open network that anyone could connect to. He was instrumental in creating the internet as we now use it. Al Gore, Sr. was one of the primary people who saw the potential of free and open highways connecting people across the country. He was instrumental in creating the interstate highway system as we now use it.
Of course, it's still easy to get around that, by shipping it with an ISA video card you found at the dump.
I guess I should make a similar disclaimer as others are making. I DO NOT have any pirated software on any of my computers. My business machines are running software according to the liscence for the Microsoft Action Pack, and my home computers use legally purchased and liscenced OEM and retail software
Actually, pirated copies of XP are the corporate version where activation is disabled because the corporation is installing on 1000's of computers and that would be a HUGE expenditure of time and bandwith to activate each one.
"Yes, Mr. Gates, Imanginarico sold me 500 copies of Windows XP and they all turned out to be fake. Their address is in Uzbekistan."
They are saying they will be cheaper than 1.5Mbit access which costs $500/month
Which confuses me greately. Granted my DSL is only half that rate, but I pay $30/month. Cable internet access is ~1.5Mbit and most charge under $50. Maybe they've got a sticky zero key?
Imagine if Google did indeed do this, but took it a step further and made their on WM (GWindow Manager?) so that Google's services were integrated into the distro. Clicking the mail link on the desktop would lead you to GMail (possibly read through their GBrowser). You could do google searches directly from a taskbar widget. You would use Picassa for your pics. A future "GOffice" to word proccessing, spreadsheets, etc. Maybe the future would see a Gplayer?
Oh shit, this is starting to sound like Windows...except it would be free...but you would probably have an AdWords pane in your file manager...I think my head is going to explode now
I'd love to go back as a leader. But I'm gay. I don't go around trying to convert people. I'm not a threat to children or teenagers. But in 2000, the Supreme Court decided that the Boy Scouts of America have a constitutional right to exclude gay men. So my experience, my enthusiasm for learning and willingness to teach is lost to the next generation.
Beyond the fact that the ruling excludes me, beyond the fact that the ruling excludes period (whereas I favor inclusion), I disagree with the ruling because it excludes one of the very groups of boys that would best be served by scouting. For generations, the boy scouts has been a haven for troubled boys, a place that taught them values and saved them from going down the wrong path. My former scout master is the perfect example. When he was 15, he was arrested for being in a local street gang. The police officer was also a scout master and offered him the choice of joining scouts or going to jail. That changed his life. The only reason he never made Eagle (in only three years!) was because in the 60's swimming wasn't an optional requirement, and he can't swim.
Gay teenagers have the highest suicide rate in the country. In the same socio-economic group, they are more likely to get in trouble than their peers. Speaking as a former closeted gay teenager, there is a lot of shame, and a lack of self-purpose. Without scouting, I wouldn't be where I am today.
Of course, on that discussion, it's obligatory to quote George Carlin,
And uh, people much wiser than I have said, I'd rather have my son watch a film with two people making love than two people trying to kill one other. And I of course agree. I wish I know who said it first, and I agree with that. But I would like to take it a step further. I would like to substitute the word fuck, for the word kill in all those movie cliches we grew up with. 'Okay Sheriff, we're gonna fuck ya now. But we're gonna fuck ya slow.' -- George Carlin
India has a population of 1,065,070,607 whereas the US has a poulation of 293,027,571
52% of 1,065,070,607 is 553,836,715 and 97% of 293,027,571 is 284,236,743. That means India already has 269,599,972 more literate people than the US
I dare say that, even in 1998, when I earned the merit badge, I could do 4b,c,d in under half an hour, especially if there was an offline document to recreate. Maybe I was a little more saavy with computers than most scouts at that age at that time. What certainly doesn't help is that most merit badge counselors accept "prior art." I would routinely fulfill the requirements for a badge, find a counselor, and have him sign off on a blue card (a generic small blue form for merit badge counselors to list the scout's info, the badge, and the requirements to get signed off on. for those still following this thread who were never boy scouts). Or at the class simply say, "yeah, I've done that" and describe it. Since a scout is trustworthy, most conselors I've met will sign off without any proof.
While there are some counselors who go "above and beyond" and really go into the subject matter to ensure the scouts actually learn something, most conselors for this badge would be happy to hear a recitation of the dictionary definitions for the terms in #6.
Maybe the scouts you work with are smarter than normal boy scouts. My brother (who is a Star) knows some basics about hardware and relative pricing, but wouldn't be able to fulfill this requirement without at least reading through a circular. Probably better (for more in-depth-ness) would be instead of comparing prices of a prebuilt HP and a prebuilt Sony in a BestBuy circular, having to do the research to find prices for a motherboard, proc, etc.
I don't know. Maybe I just had a bad experience with this and several other badges. Maybe in this case, I'm too close to the subject to see it objectively. Maybe I'm going out of my way to find faults in a program that officiially excluded me in 2000.
so is now a good time to upgrade from my 16MB ATi Radeon All-In-Wonder?