And the logical next step is inter-server communication. At some point we'll end up with a defined way for servers to communicate with each other, so that when an object is moved or removed, the server that "owns" that object can notify other servers that own objects with links to it. The worse case would be better than what we have now, if the object has been removed, the other server could mark it as unavailable and notify the site owner that it needs to be updated. Some site management utils already have a process for checking broken links (pull model), we need a push model.
This will also allow site owners to see who's linking to them, but obviously it should be utterly transparent (so that you can still link in private, but then you wouldn't get updates).
At some point we'll get there, it's just a matter of time. Questionable schemes such as the topic of this story are just a kludge, and probably not worth the effort.
Normally I wouldn't even bother replying to what is seemingly a troll. But considering that you put some time and thought into your post, I figured that I should give my opinion.
Once again, a Large Corporation takes control of what was previously a fre project, slaps a few worthless features on it, and sells it back to us, the Open Source community for big bucks.
First of all, I doubt anyone with enough of a clue to know the difference between OSS and regular software would even consider purchasing this particular piece of equipment. I mean realistically, a server that's adminstered via http, most likely without telnet/ssh? This is aimed squarely at people who need a workgroup server/firewall and don't have the time/ability to administer it themselves, nor the money to hire someone to administer it. A lot better than a Windows95 box with wingate, don't you think?
Do I hear cries of outrage over IBM's abuse of the BSD and apache licenses? No. Even the BSD users, notorious for their unfounded zealotry (such as implying that FreeBSD is somehow superior to Linux), are silent. Do you enjoy being ravaged by the forces of violent captialism?
Ok, this is the main thing I must disagree with. The ability for IBM to take the code and use is the whole purpose of this type of license. I develop software for a living. I don't have a boss, I get paid for what I can sell. Whether it's a software package, or an integrated system. I release code under the BSD license for the same reason I try to only use software under a BSD license. This is the spirit of OSS, whether some huge company comes along and decides to take and not give back is irrelevant. In every project I've implemented, I've always given full source, and I don't think theres been a single instance where my work would not have been 100% compliant with the GPL. But I still wouldn't use it. I see the GPL as a restriction, it restricts people from using my code in situations where they might really need it. And where they might not be in a position to use the GPL (it happens). It's simply the golden rule, I don't want to someday be involved in a commerical venture and have to worry about the GPL. Not every OSS developer develops as a hobby. This is why other licenses continue to exist. The GPL simply doesn't make sense sometimes.
This isn't to say your opinion doesn't matter. It does, follow your own principles, but understand that some of us do indeed make a living via software. And just because you pay for something doesn't always make it any less free (glances at stack of FreeBSD cds that have never been used).
Speaking from experience, this box is most likely overpowered for its job. I currently admin a box that servers as a NAT firewall/web/ftp server on a 768k DSL link. It runs FreeBSD (tracking stable), and only goes down when I build world. I was skeptical when I first set it up, it runs one of those AMD 486->586 things (SLOW), and I was unsure of whether it could handle just the NAT aspect of it's job (the link is saturated a fair amount of the time, both directions).
What shocked me was that NAT uses almost no cpu, I've run tests by utterly saturating the link (not the easiest thing to do, but conxion came in handy), and the combonation of natd & snort never got the cpu usage above 3%.
This box also hosts about 8 domains, web, mail, and ftp. I also run many development tasks on it, and most of the sites are all dynamic content (java, python, and perl). The only thing that puts a load on the machine is mod_jserv, with the java process using a constant 6%.
Considering IBM's server doesn't do CGI, the only thing I could see it sweating from is a ton of samba connections (and that would depend mainly on memory on the machine and the speed of the internal connection).
I really don't understand the need for people to jump through hoops (registration, etc) in order to have a look at the spec. We're in dire need of something like this, but if they're serious about it being an open specification, why not start open?
Please fill in the application form and you will receive more detailed instructions of the membership application process.
Has anyone went through this and had a look at the specification? What exactly is the membership application process? I personally would've liked to have a look at what's been done already without registering and all.
... as I see it. Obviously there needs to be some common sense constraints on what you can do with a DVD (or CD, etc) once you purchased it. Whether or not people would go out and start up their own little movie theatres or start broadcasting the latest releases is irrelevant. But the industry granting itself complete control over what you can do with a DVD you've just purchased is ludicrous. This goes well beyond fair-use. Look at the situation we're in, they've managed to control the media and the use of the media. This directly/indirectly affects EVERYONE who comes into any type of contact with that media. Everyone from the production of the media, to the consumers wanting to use it.
These licenses are so opposite to common sense and fair-use that it's no longer even remotely funny. The last thing we need is for them to be legally enforcable.
But thats the idea, if they aren't legally enforcable, they'll make sure they can enforce them via control of the market. That's why DeCSS scares them, much more so than someone commercially pirating DVDs. It's the first attack on their control, and they're gonna fight this one tooth and nail.
There are entirely too many comments regarding how Katz spouts off about things he is obviously clueless (relative to the majority of/.) about. Personally, I believe this is the purpose of Katz writing here in the first place.
Sure, Katz's articles don't fit well into "News for Nerds", but I believe that they do fit into "Stuff that matters." Most technical people have a tendency (gift?) to be extremely focused, this is afterall how we're able to deal with the complexity of what we do. But due to this focus we also have a great deal less flexibility in understanding the impact of the things we do. Katz is here to give us his panoramic view.
I don't know about everyone else here, but I personally read/. for the discussion, for the disagreement. That's the beauty of being technically orientated. You learn very quickly to deal with disagreement, and hopefully to learn/grow from it.
Katz's opinions should be valued as much as purely technical nit-picking (peer review). If for no other reason than perhaps he sees something that we don't, due to our focus.
Maybe if we can all logically understand the need for varying viewpoints we can use our unique abilities to create a better place for everyone. We are the ones building the information infrastructure. We need to ensure it's stable. With the additional insight, maybe we can nip things like the DVD fiasco in the bud. Or maybe I'll get flamed to hell and/. will turn into a breeding ground for the corporate teflon warrior mentality. Someone please disagree with me:)
News for Nerds >and< Stuff that matters. Keep that in mind.
I was unable to locate any information about ZoneAlarm (zonelabs.com dns server seems to be down), and google wasn't much help finding info either. So I don't know if this is the type of thing you're looking for.
I use snort as a basic IDS. It's very flexible, and you can configure it in a variety of ways depending on your needs. Personally, I have it setup to discard packet data and simply log to syslog. I also have a small prog watch the snort output and manipulate ipfw (FreeBSD) accordingly. So basically, after a particular ip trips snort too often during a period of time, the system automatically drops all packets from that ip for 5 minutes or so.
Is whether or not it is illegal to utilize "public services" with non-approved access methods. In particular, utilizing public net services. I am of the belief that if you are running a public server on the internet, you cannot expect people to use the client you specify. Imagine if you only had one browser to choose from? The web is a different concept in that it's decentralized, but ICQ is a good example. ICQ has the lion's share of the latest "hot" market, and as much as they'd like to retain total control, I wouldn't appreciate being tied into one client.
If we get to the point where the precedent has been set that public services are within their legal right to restrict which clients are able to connect, we're in a position where competition will be severely stifled.
I'd really like to know if this type of concept already falls under some law, or if its just another grey area in the merging of law and the net.
Technically, the IntelliMouse is a 3 button mouse, the wheel is in fact a button, and should work with anything that recognizes 3 buttons.
I don't know specifically how the wheel movements are handled in hardware (they're passed, logically, as messages in the Win32 API), but they could be considered buttons, so that brings it up to 5. And IIRC, the new MS mouse has two extra buttons for browsing forward/back (yea right, those are two buttons that would get remapped asap), which would bring the total to 7.:)
I never cared for the Logitech hardware myself, seems well made, but just feels awkward. The curved intellimouse felt perfect from the first time I used it. Although I always preferred the rubbery type they sold initially (that I can't seem to find anymore) to the slick plastic ones.
If nothing else, MS knows how to make mice. I swear by MS mice and havent been swayed by anything else since I tried the first MS mouse. Every other mouse at the time felt cheap and flimsy. I guess what I really liked about it was the weight, it helped it track smooth. Not to mention reliability, every MS mouse I've bought still works to this day (including the first, although it doesn't get much use anymore).
The wheel of course is amazing, to me at least. Yea, its nice when browsing through web pages or a few thousand lines of code, but it really shines in TF. Any serious TF nut will tell you the key to the game is grenades. With the wheel, you can roll up or down to prime either type of grenade, and press it to throw. Deadly.
On a slightly off topic note, has anyone tried their new optical mouse? Is it worth it?
Although it's doubtful that echelon experienced any adverse reaction to "Jam Echelon Day", the real result was a partial success.
Most people don't have a clue as to what echelon is, or even if they did, perhaps they perceived the concept in a positive light. By having this type of protest, there was at least some media exposure. While there doesn't seem to be as much exposure as this deserves (hence, a partial success, imho), any is good. It may provide the avenue by which people can get a good wack with the cluestick.
Greater general awareness cannot be a bad thing, if nothing else, the NSA and their echelon conspiritors will have to tread just a little more lightly, and may even (God forbid) produce some answers to congress.
The media may be useless in many regards, but sometimes the blunt method of getting any information to the masses, is very useful. I'd rather have a slightly misinformed public than a totally uninformed one on matters like this.
Chances are the problems they're having is a combonation of unexpected demand and lack of focus in regards to their fulfillment procedures.
I personally expect this type of thing in the age of product rush. Hopefully, the time they didn't put into the fulfillment, they invested in the product itself, which I would find admirable.
I don't think it makes a bit of difference to most educated consumers (the kind I hope slashdot is dominated by ), since we tend to select products intelligently. I know its a rare day that I'll pluck down my cash for the newest gadget (although this is sometimes frustrating), instead waiting for usage reviews and bugs to be worked out (not to mention the price drop that eventually comes after they've milked all the impulse buyers).
All in all, these problems wouldn't disuade me from purchasing one, especially if it's as good as it looks, which the recon (impulse buyers) will alert us to.
Forgive me for my lack of details, but it was a while ago and I'm a bit under the weather at the moment.
IIRC, this was tried maybe a year ago, it was a browser plug-in that allowed you to type specific keywords and take you to the site that matched those keywords closest. It wasn't really a search engine, more like a commercial replacement for DNS. They charged the site owners to register the keywords with them, and since it was a private company, they had full control over who got which name.
In essence it comes down to whoever had the most $$ would win the dispute, which does no better since it redirects the control from who thought the name up first to who has more money (which, mho, is worse than the current situation).
I can see how this may not fit your concept exactly, but it was pretty close, and a basically unstable business model (considering I've heard nothing about them for quite some time). Perhaps someone who remembers the service more clearly can clue us in, be interesting to pop over to their site and see whats going on (IE: see if they've thrown in the towel yet, or what their business plan du jour is).
A different system that is more fair to all would be appreciated, and I would be among the first to support it. As soon as someone contemplates one, let me know.
Spoofing is very real, and if you believe otherwise, you're being illogical. Think about the essence of data communications, just a bunch of electrical pulses travelling down a wire. If you have access to that wire, you can send anything down it and make it seem like it was coming from anywhere on the other end. You can also deny traffic, or modify it en route. Basically, you can do anything.
Don't kid yourself, spoofing is a common occurance, and those who do it properly are usually not even noticed.
And encryption doesn't help much either, if the format of the data is known (the protocol), you can easily just proxy the authentication and none would be any the wiser. 3rd party authentication is slightly better, but for a determined entity, its really just one more wire to compromise.
Is if they detect so many attempts (and I doubt they detect them all), why would an obvious spoofed attack be headline news?
Of the "plenty of attacks" on the ASX computer system, Mr Humphry said none had been successful, with "amateurs trying fairly frequently".
Why wasn't this just dismissed as another amateur attempt, instead of slandering the US military. I mean, everyone has problems with their government. I'm no huge fan of ours (US), but considering Oz's track record in regards to technology, this just seems to be an outright insult towards the US.
Are you telling me they honestly believed our military was trying to attack their stock exchange? It simply doesn't make sense.
Mr Humphry said authorities were notified after the hackers from the US military installation tried to break into the site and "broke into another site to achieve that objective".
If they had control of a machine between their servers and the supposedly source, someone with enough technical expertise could make the attack seem like it was coming from literally anywhere. As long as the packets route through that machine, it wouldn't matter.
And even if the attacks genuinely came from a US military institution, I doubt it was from anything but an unsecured web server that was cracked. Of course the article doesn't give many details.
It just bothers me that they'd publish this garbage and make it seem as if that was exactly how it happened, when there are numerous possibilities of how the attempt could've occured. And without any details.
You can try to blame this on the Australian media, but I can't, since they should've dismissed this attack, and the media shouldn't even have been notified.
I've done a number of major exchange installs, and what's amusing is the very things you cite as reasons why you wouldn't use sendmail are precisely the same reasons I prefer not to deploy exchange anymore.
sendmail isn't an option for messaging as it does not offer calendaring, resource management (scheduling) task management, or anything close
That's my point exactly, when I deploy an enterprise class mail system, I want a mail system that works properly. I really believe that exchange/outlook has suffered from the extreme end of feature creep. I prefer my servers to provide a set of services well, not try to provide everything.
Don't take this as a flame, since it's always the end user's needs that have to be taken into consideration when evaluating different servers to deploy. And the level of integration from exchange is really unmatched, but I think it's overkill when you need stable messaging.
I've deployed quite a few NT servers, but these days, I'm finding unix boxen more and more appealing. Unlike most people who gripe about the stability of NT, this isn't my issue. I have NT servers that have been running for well over a year without a hitch. My newfound preference for unix is due to flexibility. Configuring NT services is nowhere near as flexible as configuring comparable unix services, not without getting into some real code anyhow.
It's interesting how they point out the easy to use UI for configuring sendmail on NT. Although the primary reason I like unix is due to the power available by modifying configuration files to taste, I still think there should be two levels of configuration for any particular service.
Even if the second level is just a "browser" to give you an overview of the current setup, it would be a welcome addition. Sometimes its aggrevating to scroll through huge config files just to find one particular setting. I wouldn't give up the slightest bit of flexibility for it, but it would be nice.
I personally consider the port of sendmail a good thing. Exchange has some nice features, but it's a serious dog. And I've had the unfortunate experience of developing exchange/outlook commercial plug-ins on both the client and server side. It wasn't as bad as notes/vim, but it was close.
I'm still relatively new to unix development, although I'm not new to development in general. I supposed I've been spoiled in recent years with the quality of Borland's enviroments. Delphi 4/5 in particular are amazing from a speed of development aspect. Once you learn the key bindings for the enviroment, speed of development is unmatched with anything I've encountered. One or two keys, and file with the variable/function/structure the cursor is over pops up. Another key and the end of an object speicfication, and a list of properties/methods are available. Instant reminders of the parameters (inlcuding options for overloaded calls) of any function while you're typing them, as well as any variables in scope that will match them.
This is what I expect from an enviroment, and although emacs seems to be a flexible enviroment, I just can't see it matching that level of integration.
I hope Borland is serious about porting some of their tools to Linux (and BSD!). I'd gladly pay a few hundred for that editor alone.
Please take the following comments for what they are, speaking from the perspective of an independant developer.
Unlike a large majority of the users here, I'm not totally against microsoft. For me, they've done quite a bit, made computing easy for the average user. This has created a huge market for independant developers, and MS has to some degree catered to developers (the documentation on MSDN is an amazing resource for any serious Win32 developer).
Perhaps one of the primary reasons (aside from the market share) that I've continued to target the Win32 platform is microsoft's ability to negate the NC concept at every turn. Obviously they've done this for their own benefit, to protect their PC market, which is also the market that independant developers target.
I can only wonder if MS realizes the implications of changing it's focus away from PCs. The only reason windows is where it is is due to software. An OS is nothing without software, and contrary to what MS believes, they cannot develop it all themselves.
I really have to wonder if they're serious, because if they are, I envision a mass exodus of developers from the windows platform. I know I will be among the first, as I've already started analyzing alternate operating systems for server applications.
I haven't been able to find any absolute information regarding the FreeBSD license (if anyone has a good link, please share it with me), so excuse me if I'm totally off base here.
It was my understanding that the FreeBSD license put less restrictions on the use of the core code. So why wouldn't it be possible for these companies to release their contributions under any type of license they liked? If this were the case, I would think that FreeBSD would be a more enticing platform for them if anything.
Again, good chance I'm totally wrong here, would really love some definite information regarding the FreeBSD license (and it hasn't been for lack of trying).
I decided to upgrade that silly BSD Cyrix386 box I had running today, and considering the strong favorable comments posted here, I went with an AMD chip.
So now my gateway testbed is running a K6-2/333, and I do admit its speedy. I'll just have to see how stable it is:)
Don't get me wrong, I agree completely to the fact that there will be places where the mainframe/terminal concept works well. But I believe Sun wants it to work everywhere, and they need to realize that won't happen.
I feel this needs to be reiterated in the main thread.
I'm reading so much about how much easier terminals/network computers/etc are to manage. And I'm not disagreeing in the least. The time and costs required to manage a bunch of PCs grows exponetially with the number of boxes on the network. It's a given.
My problem is that everyone seems to be looking at this with a very narrow point of view. Which is also to be expected. The readers here are primarily technically proficient, intelligient people. And I'm sure that quite a few of them are full time sysadmins as well. And from their perspective, easier management and reduced cost of the network is top priority, as it should be, for the most part.
But you need to consider the welfare of the entire company (and this message is directed at business computing, since I'm sure we can all agree that none would want to give up their home PC for just a terminal).
If you have a company full of glorified data entry personell who don't have the ability/desire/intelligence/etc to use more than one or two applications, this works well.
But I believe that the added costs of hiring more adept people, giving them the tools and resources (PCs) to use their abilities will give the company as a whole a competitive edge. THIS is the correct reason for moving from a mainframe/terminal setup.
I'm sorry, lowering IS cost is meaningless if it means reducing the employees ability to do their job effectively. This of course requires the best employees possible, which is another topic altogether.
I'd much rather have one or two intelligent people with atmospheric salaries who can creatively solve problems than 30 entry level people who require a lot of hand holding and attack problems brute force. And if it costs more to maintain the network and to give them PCs for them to do what they need to do, so be it. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what they make and what they make the company.
Slashdot Mirror
This will also allow site owners to see who's linking to them, but obviously it should be utterly transparent (so that you can still link in private, but then you wouldn't get updates).
At some point we'll get there, it's just a matter of time. Questionable schemes such as the topic of this story are just a kludge, and probably not worth the effort.
Once again, a Large Corporation takes control of what was previously a fre project, slaps a few worthless features on it, and sells it back to us, the Open Source community for big bucks.
First of all, I doubt anyone with enough of a clue to know the difference between OSS and regular software would even consider purchasing this particular piece of equipment. I mean realistically, a server that's adminstered via http, most likely without telnet/ssh? This is aimed squarely at people who need a workgroup server/firewall and don't have the time/ability to administer it themselves, nor the money to hire someone to administer it. A lot better than a Windows95 box with wingate, don't you think?
Do I hear cries of outrage over IBM's abuse of the BSD and apache licenses? No. Even the BSD users, notorious for their unfounded zealotry (such as implying that FreeBSD is somehow superior to Linux), are silent. Do you enjoy being ravaged by the forces of violent captialism?
Ok, this is the main thing I must disagree with. The ability for IBM to take the code and use is the whole purpose of this type of license. I develop software for a living. I don't have a boss, I get paid for what I can sell. Whether it's a software package, or an integrated system. I release code under the BSD license for the same reason I try to only use software under a BSD license. This is the spirit of OSS, whether some huge company comes along and decides to take and not give back is irrelevant. In every project I've implemented, I've always given full source, and I don't think theres been a single instance where my work would not have been 100% compliant with the GPL. But I still wouldn't use it. I see the GPL as a restriction, it restricts people from using my code in situations where they might really need it. And where they might not be in a position to use the GPL (it happens). It's simply the golden rule, I don't want to someday be involved in a commerical venture and have to worry about the GPL. Not every OSS developer develops as a hobby. This is why other licenses continue to exist. The GPL simply doesn't make sense sometimes.
This isn't to say your opinion doesn't matter. It does, follow your own principles, but understand that some of us do indeed make a living via software. And just because you pay for something doesn't always make it any less free (glances at stack of FreeBSD cds that have never been used).
What shocked me was that NAT uses almost no cpu, I've run tests by utterly saturating the link (not the easiest thing to do, but conxion came in handy), and the combonation of natd & snort never got the cpu usage above 3%.
This box also hosts about 8 domains, web, mail, and ftp. I also run many development tasks on it, and most of the sites are all dynamic content (java, python, and perl). The only thing that puts a load on the machine is mod_jserv, with the java process using a constant 6%.
Considering IBM's server doesn't do CGI, the only thing I could see it sweating from is a ton of samba connections (and that would depend mainly on memory on the machine and the speed of the internal connection).
I really don't understand the need for people to jump through hoops (registration, etc) in order to have a look at the spec. We're in dire need of something like this, but if they're serious about it being an open specification, why not start open?
Please fill in the application form and you will receive more detailed instructions of the membership application process.
Has anyone went through this and had a look at the specification? What exactly is the membership application process? I personally would've liked to have a look at what's been done already without registering and all.
Have you checked Flashcom? I know a few people in the bronx that have xDSL access from them, and the price isn't bad.
Hope this helps.
... as I see it. Obviously there needs to be some common sense constraints on what you can do with a DVD (or CD, etc) once you purchased it. Whether or not people would go out and start up their own little movie theatres or start broadcasting the latest releases is irrelevant. But the industry granting itself complete control over what you can do with a DVD you've just purchased is ludicrous. This goes well beyond fair-use. Look at the situation we're in, they've managed to control the media and the use of the media. This directly/indirectly affects EVERYONE who comes into any type of contact with that media. Everyone from the production of the media, to the consumers wanting to use it.
These licenses are so opposite to common sense and fair-use that it's no longer even remotely funny. The last thing we need is for them to be legally enforcable.
But thats the idea, if they aren't legally enforcable, they'll make sure they can enforce them via control of the market. That's why DeCSS scares them, much more so than someone commercially pirating DVDs. It's the first attack on their control, and they're gonna fight this one tooth and nail.
There are entirely too many comments regarding how Katz spouts off about things he is obviously clueless (relative to the majority of /.) about. Personally, I believe this is the purpose of Katz writing here in the first place.
/. for the discussion, for the disagreement. That's the beauty of being technically orientated. You learn very quickly to deal with disagreement, and hopefully to learn/grow from it.
/. will turn into a breeding ground for the corporate teflon warrior mentality. Someone please disagree with me :)
Sure, Katz's articles don't fit well into "News for Nerds", but I believe that they do fit into "Stuff that matters." Most technical people have a tendency (gift?) to be extremely focused, this is afterall how we're able to deal with the complexity of what we do. But due to this focus we also have a great deal less flexibility in understanding the impact of the things we do. Katz is here to give us his panoramic view.
I don't know about everyone else here, but I personally read
Katz's opinions should be valued as much as purely technical nit-picking (peer review). If for no other reason than perhaps he sees something that we don't, due to our focus.
Maybe if we can all logically understand the need for varying viewpoints we can use our unique abilities to create a better place for everyone. We are the ones building the information infrastructure. We need to ensure it's stable. With the additional insight, maybe we can nip things like the DVD fiasco in the bud. Or maybe I'll get flamed to hell and
News for Nerds >and< Stuff that matters. Keep that in mind.
I was unable to locate any information about ZoneAlarm (zonelabs.com dns server seems to be down), and google wasn't much help finding info either. So I don't know if this is the type of thing you're looking for.
I use snort as a basic IDS. It's very flexible, and you can configure it in a variety of ways depending on your needs. Personally, I have it setup to discard packet data and simply log to syslog. I also have a small prog watch the snort output and manipulate ipfw (FreeBSD) accordingly. So basically, after a particular ip trips snort too often during a period of time, the system automatically drops all packets from that ip for 5 minutes or so.
Hope this helps a little.
Is whether or not it is illegal to utilize "public services" with non-approved access methods. In particular, utilizing public net services. I am of the belief that if you are running a public server on the internet, you cannot expect people to use the client you specify. Imagine if you only had one browser to choose from? The web is a different concept in that it's decentralized, but ICQ is a good example. ICQ has the lion's share of the latest "hot" market, and as much as they'd like to retain total control, I wouldn't appreciate being tied into one client.
If we get to the point where the precedent has been set that public services are within their legal right to restrict which clients are able to connect, we're in a position where competition will be severely stifled.
I'd really like to know if this type of concept already falls under some law, or if its just another grey area in the merging of law and the net.
Technically, the IntelliMouse is a 3 button mouse, the wheel is in fact a button, and should work with anything that recognizes 3 buttons.
:)
I don't know specifically how the wheel movements are handled in hardware (they're passed, logically, as messages in the Win32 API), but they could be considered buttons, so that brings it up to 5. And IIRC, the new MS mouse has two extra buttons for browsing forward/back (yea right, those are two buttons that would get remapped asap), which would bring the total to 7.
I never cared for the Logitech hardware myself, seems well made, but just feels awkward. The curved intellimouse felt perfect from the first time I used it. Although I always preferred the rubbery type they sold initially (that I can't seem to find anymore) to the slick plastic ones.
If nothing else, MS knows how to make mice. I swear by MS mice and havent been swayed by anything else since I tried the first MS mouse. Every other mouse at the time felt cheap and flimsy. I guess what I really liked about it was the weight, it helped it track smooth. Not to mention reliability, every MS mouse I've bought still works to this day (including the first, although it doesn't get much use anymore).
The wheel of course is amazing, to me at least. Yea, its nice when browsing through web pages or a few thousand lines of code, but it really shines in TF. Any serious TF nut will tell you the key to the game is grenades. With the wheel, you can roll up or down to prime either type of grenade, and press it to throw. Deadly.
On a slightly off topic note, has anyone tried their new optical mouse? Is it worth it?
Although it's doubtful that echelon experienced any adverse reaction to "Jam Echelon Day", the real result was a partial success.
Most people don't have a clue as to what echelon is, or even if they did, perhaps they perceived the concept in a positive light. By having this type of protest, there was at least some media exposure. While there doesn't seem to be as much exposure as this deserves (hence, a partial success, imho), any is good. It may provide the avenue by which people can get a good wack with the cluestick.
Greater general awareness cannot be a bad thing, if nothing else, the NSA and their echelon conspiritors will have to tread just a little more lightly, and may even (God forbid) produce some answers to congress.
The media may be useless in many regards, but sometimes the blunt method of getting any information to the masses, is very useful. I'd rather have a slightly misinformed public than a totally uninformed one on matters like this.
Chances are the problems they're having is a combonation of unexpected demand and lack of focus in regards to their fulfillment procedures.
I personally expect this type of thing in the age of product rush. Hopefully, the time they didn't put into the fulfillment, they invested in the product itself, which I would find admirable.
I don't think it makes a bit of difference to most educated consumers (the kind I hope slashdot is dominated by ), since we tend to select products intelligently. I know its a rare day that I'll pluck down my cash for the newest gadget (although this is sometimes frustrating), instead waiting for usage reviews and bugs to be worked out (not to mention the price drop that eventually comes after they've milked all the impulse buyers).
All in all, these problems wouldn't disuade me from purchasing one, especially if it's as good as it looks, which the recon (impulse buyers) will alert us to.
Forgive me for my lack of details, but it was a while ago and I'm a bit under the weather at the moment.
IIRC, this was tried maybe a year ago, it was a browser plug-in that allowed you to type specific keywords and take you to the site that matched those keywords closest. It wasn't really a search engine, more like a commercial replacement for DNS. They charged the site owners to register the keywords with them, and since it was a private company, they had full control over who got which name.
In essence it comes down to whoever had the most $$ would win the dispute, which does no better since it redirects the control from who thought the name up first to who has more money (which, mho, is worse than the current situation).
I can see how this may not fit your concept exactly, but it was pretty close, and a basically unstable business model (considering I've heard nothing about them for quite some time). Perhaps someone who remembers the service more clearly can clue us in, be interesting to pop over to their site and see whats going on (IE: see if they've thrown in the towel yet, or what their business plan du jour is).
A different system that is more fair to all would be appreciated, and I would be among the first to support it. As soon as someone contemplates one, let me know.
"the laws of tcp/ip"?
:)
AFAIK, TCP/IP is a protocol, not a set of laws
Spoofing is very real, and if you believe otherwise, you're being illogical. Think about the essence of data communications, just a bunch of electrical pulses travelling down a wire. If you have access to that wire, you can send anything down it and make it seem like it was coming from anywhere on the other end. You can also deny traffic, or modify it en route. Basically, you can do anything.
Don't kid yourself, spoofing is a common occurance, and those who do it properly are usually not even noticed.
And encryption doesn't help much either, if the format of the data is known (the protocol), you can easily just proxy the authentication and none would be any the wiser. 3rd party authentication is slightly better, but for a determined entity, its really just one more wire to compromise.
This and This ... Etc.
Is if they detect so many attempts (and I doubt they detect them all), why would an obvious spoofed attack be headline news?
Of the "plenty of attacks" on the ASX computer system, Mr Humphry said none had been successful, with "amateurs trying fairly frequently".
Why wasn't this just dismissed as another amateur attempt, instead of slandering the US military. I mean, everyone has problems with their government. I'm no huge fan of ours (US), but considering Oz's track record in regards to technology, this just seems to be an outright insult towards the US.
Are you telling me they honestly believed our military was trying to attack their stock exchange? It simply doesn't make sense.
Mr Humphry said authorities were notified after the hackers from the US military installation tried to break into the site and "broke into another site to achieve that objective".
If they had control of a machine between their servers and the supposedly source, someone with enough technical expertise could make the attack seem like it was coming from literally anywhere. As long as the packets route through that machine, it wouldn't matter.
And even if the attacks genuinely came from a US military institution, I doubt it was from anything but an unsecured web server that was cracked. Of course the article doesn't give many details.
It just bothers me that they'd publish this garbage and make it seem as if that was exactly how it happened, when there are numerous possibilities of how the attempt could've occured. And without any details.
You can try to blame this on the Australian media, but I can't, since they should've dismissed this attack, and the media shouldn't even have been notified.
I've done a number of major exchange installs, and what's amusing is the very things you cite as reasons why you wouldn't use sendmail are precisely the same reasons I prefer not to deploy exchange anymore.
sendmail isn't an option for messaging as it does not offer calendaring, resource management (scheduling) task management, or anything close
That's my point exactly, when I deploy an enterprise class mail system, I want a mail system that works properly. I really believe that exchange/outlook has suffered from the extreme end of feature creep. I prefer my servers to provide a set of services well, not try to provide everything.
Don't take this as a flame, since it's always the end user's needs that have to be taken into consideration when evaluating different servers to deploy. And the level of integration from exchange is really unmatched, but I think it's overkill when you need stable messaging.
I've deployed quite a few NT servers, but these days, I'm finding unix boxen more and more appealing. Unlike most people who gripe about the stability of NT, this isn't my issue. I have NT servers that have been running for well over a year without a hitch. My newfound preference for unix is due to flexibility. Configuring NT services is nowhere near as flexible as configuring comparable unix services, not without getting into some real code anyhow.
It's interesting how they point out the easy to use UI for configuring sendmail on NT. Although the primary reason I like unix is due to the power available by modifying configuration files to taste, I still think there should be two levels of configuration for any particular service.
Even if the second level is just a "browser" to give you an overview of the current setup, it would be a welcome addition. Sometimes its aggrevating to scroll through huge config files just to find one particular setting. I wouldn't give up the slightest bit of flexibility for it, but it would be nice.
I personally consider the port of sendmail a good thing. Exchange has some nice features, but it's a serious dog. And I've had the unfortunate experience of developing exchange/outlook commercial plug-ins on both the client and server side. It wasn't as bad as notes/vim, but it was close.
I'm still relatively new to unix development, although I'm not new to development in general. I supposed I've been spoiled in recent years with the quality of Borland's enviroments. Delphi 4/5 in particular are amazing from a speed of development aspect. Once you learn the key bindings for the enviroment, speed of development is unmatched with anything I've encountered. One or two keys, and file with the variable/function/structure the cursor is over pops up. Another key and the end of an object speicfication, and a list of properties/methods are available. Instant reminders of the parameters (inlcuding options for overloaded calls) of any function while you're typing them, as well as any variables in scope that will match them.
This is what I expect from an enviroment, and although emacs seems to be a flexible enviroment, I just can't see it matching that level of integration.
I hope Borland is serious about porting some of their tools to Linux (and BSD!). I'd gladly pay a few hundred for that editor alone.
Please take the following comments for what they are, speaking from the perspective of an independant developer.
Unlike a large majority of the users here, I'm not totally against microsoft. For me, they've done quite a bit, made computing easy for the average user. This has created a huge market for independant developers, and MS has to some degree catered to developers (the documentation on MSDN is an amazing resource for any serious Win32 developer).
Perhaps one of the primary reasons (aside from the market share) that I've continued to target the Win32 platform is microsoft's ability to negate the NC concept at every turn. Obviously they've done this for their own benefit, to protect their PC market, which is also the market that independant developers target.
I can only wonder if MS realizes the implications of changing it's focus away from PCs. The only reason windows is where it is is due to software. An OS is nothing without software, and contrary to what MS believes, they cannot develop it all themselves.
I really have to wonder if they're serious, because if they are, I envision a mass exodus of developers from the windows platform. I know I will be among the first, as I've already started analyzing alternate operating systems for server applications.
All I really want is a real IDE for Linux/BSD.
I haven't been able to find any absolute information regarding the FreeBSD license (if anyone has a good link, please share it with me), so excuse me if I'm totally off base here.
It was my understanding that the FreeBSD license put less restrictions on the use of the core code. So why wouldn't it be possible for these companies to release their contributions under any type of license they liked? If this were the case, I would think that FreeBSD would be a more enticing platform for them if anything.
Again, good chance I'm totally wrong here, would really love some definite information regarding the FreeBSD license (and it hasn't been for lack of trying).
I decided to upgrade that silly BSD Cyrix386 box I had running today, and considering the strong favorable comments posted here, I went with an AMD chip.
:)
So now my gateway testbed is running a K6-2/333, and I do admit its speedy. I'll just have to see how stable it is
Don't get me wrong, I agree completely to the fact that there will be places where the mainframe/terminal concept works well. But I believe Sun wants it to work everywhere, and they need to realize that won't happen.
I feel this needs to be reiterated in the main thread.
I'm reading so much about how much easier terminals/network computers/etc are to manage. And I'm not disagreeing in the least. The time and costs required to manage a bunch of PCs grows exponetially with the number of boxes on the network. It's a given.
My problem is that everyone seems to be looking at this with a very narrow point of view. Which is also to be expected. The readers here are primarily technically proficient, intelligient people. And I'm sure that quite a few of them are full time sysadmins as well. And from their perspective, easier management and reduced cost of the network is top priority, as it should be, for the most part.
But you need to consider the welfare of the entire company (and this message is directed at business computing, since I'm sure we can all agree that none would want to give up their home PC for just a terminal).
If you have a company full of glorified data entry personell who don't have the ability/desire/intelligence/etc to use more than one or two applications, this works well.
But I believe that the added costs of hiring more adept people, giving them the tools and resources (PCs) to use their abilities will give the company as a whole a competitive edge. THIS is the correct reason for moving from a mainframe/terminal setup.
I'm sorry, lowering IS cost is meaningless if it means reducing the employees ability to do their job effectively. This of course requires the best employees possible, which is another topic altogether.
I'd much rather have one or two intelligent people with atmospheric salaries who can creatively solve problems than 30 entry level people who require a lot of hand holding and attack problems brute force. And if it costs more to maintain the network and to give them PCs for them to do what they need to do, so be it. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what they make and what they make the company.