That's exactly why you shouldn't get a powerbook. If your IT staff can't even properly support Windows machines in a secure environment, what makes you think they'll know fuck-all about supporting a Mac in that same environment? (Much less like you any more for adding to their existing headaches)
I don't think thats the problem. IMHO, the issue is more hardware than software related... PC laptops just suck. PC makers operate on razor thin margins - which means cheap (and often proprietary) parts, gawd-awful, tech support, and an enormous number of models. Microsoft has taken on the impossible task of supporting what feels like an infinite number of piss-poor hardware configurations, and though they've done a fairly good job in that respect, there is just no way the machines will be as stable as Apple's controled & limited line. Period. Regardless of how good (or bad) your in-house IT department is.
I've become rather disgusted with all of the PC makers out there, so I started building my own machines with QUALITY interchangable parts that I could fix myself and never looked back. I couldn't do that when it came time for a laptop, so I gave Apple a shot not because I was a fanboy or hated Windows, but because I felt like they were the only manufacutrer that didn't juse junk parts and or cripple their support/parts department.
Granted, I'm quite platform agnostic (though OSX is growning on me) as all of my time is spent doing database administration or writing Java/PHP/AJAX, but I don't think I'm in the minority for my reasons for switching to Apple notebooks. I still find PC desktops more cost-effective in terms of hardware and support/repair/maintence cost, but Intel chips and a reasonable price drop in the PowerMacs might change my mind.
The list does not leave much for an 18-year-old PHP developer with special interest in UNIX and overall network, web and server security.
I mean no disrespect, but go to college - preferably in a tech center (SanFran or Boston in particular) - you'll have far more opprotunities. I'm not doubting your abilities, but '18-year-old PHP developer' has risky written all over it from the employer's perspective. Its too easy to know a little PHP and UNIX, but know nothing about computer science fundamentals. There are great internships/co-ops/work with profs available to students, and you'll be orders of magnitude more employable as a graduate. Besides, college is more fun than work anyways.
I fail to see how that is any different than a quick taskmgr->processes. Simply viewing the processes (and their owner/status/etc) on either platform offer little insight as to if a legit process (or ps/taskmgr itself) is rooted.
I think a hardware keylogger would be a lot easier to spot than a software keylogger to the average 'non-tech' user.
Then you sir, have never helped a non-tech friend/relative 'fix their broken computer' only to discover that something was unplugged. Its mind boggling, but the sheer volume of cables behind the average PC (despite being simple and color-coded) means that the user pays little attention to them. Though I haven't seen one, I don't imagine a hardware key logger is hugely different in size/shape than a PS/2-USB converter. Plenty of people have those on their machines, don't know what they are, and don't question them.
I really like the idea and could have some very cool applications. But I'm not sure less-tech savy users would be one of them.
I mean, it seems like a bit of a catch 22 to market an active security solution (ie, think about security before every transaction, instead of a one-time install) to a group who has security problems precicely because they don't want to concern themselves with security 24/7.
Uhh.. given that the parent reads "if you're capable of tweaking the modelines in XF86Config, you're probably able to find the settings to turn off automatic bulletting." and his subsequent respnses to my post, I would beg to differ.
Yes, but conversely, the area is expensive because it is a desirable place to live in. Which means more good talent, which means companies want to move in too. New York and San Francisco are outrageously expensive too, but it would be premature to call them doomed.
Kind of a tangent, but when talking about Massachusetts the discussion revolves around Boston. Romney is responsible for the entire state, and there is a lot of potential in some of the surronding second-tier cities like Worcester (close to Boston, tons of great schools, low cost of living, etc) to experience revivals similar to nearby Providence's by attracting companies that are drawn to Boston but cannot afford it.
Competitors in Canada & Europe have a great advantage which we are literally killing ourselves to maintain for them
Last I checked, the unemployment in Europe and Canada is higher than it is in the US. Sure you don't have to factor heath care costs in for your employees, but you factor the crushing tax burden in instead... nevermind the difficulty of firing someone in a near-socalist state. I don't think we're maintaining foreign heath care systems either; its just that the US legal system is broken. The cost of medical overhead - outrageous lawsuits, malpractice insurance, and FDA aproval are really the root problems of heath care cost. The lack of such nonsense is the reason Canadian drugs & treatment is so much cheaper.
I'm quite aware of the cost of heath care in the Greater Boston area. But if the cost of heath care drastically changes the equation, I have a suspicion that you wouldn't be paying these would-be employees all that large salaries anyways. In which case, why not just offer the job without heath care benifits and/or hire co-ops/interns?
..but I suspect that this is intended to be flexible mostly in an upward direction...
Perhaps they're trying to promote the ablum, rather than just singles?
At a buck a pop, iTunes is only appealing (to me) to pick up the gems on an otherwise unknown and/or poor album. Otherwise, I just buy the album and rip it. By pricing singles higher, they make more and it's still is more cost efficent for me to use iTunes. By pricing the other tracks lower, it increasing the chances that I'll take a shot on a song that I haven't heard before.
Granted, X's configuration has come a ways since the whole XFree/Xorg fork, but yes a misconfigured X can damage your monitor, and yes I've seen an autodetect that would do so. My c:/windows/tmp doesn't have any more old junk than my/tmp. I just think that you're being rather forgiving of X & Linux, and rather nit-picky of Office & MS. If I was to come up with a lists of what they each 'do poorly', the lists would be different but equal in length.
I don't mind spending five minutes editing a well-documented file format, ONCE, to get X to work.
I do mind having to spend ten minutes digging through random menu options to get a software program to not do something dumb.
Um, I would qualify X 'auto-detecting' resolutions and refresh rates that could reduce my monitor to smoldering plastic as 'somthing dumb' too, and calling it 'well-documented' is the exaggeration of the day. Tools->options->autoCorrect doesn't take 10 minutes, does it?
I mean, there's a lot of stuff MS does poorly, but Office is not one of them (actually, I think Office:Mac is the finest version, but thats a tangent). Seems like we've crossed the line from honest critique to irrational hatred...
How long will it be until Google blankets the entire nation? I sure hope they get over here to the east coast pretty soon, cause I'm paying through the nose for Adelphia.
Tell me about it. Perhaps its wishful thinking on my part, but what are the odds that Boston is next on the list after Silicon Valley? High population density & tons of tech buisnesses and universities, and small enough that its feisable....
AJAX brings together some hot properties, Javascript, HTML/DHTML and HTML, according to Julie Hanna Farris
Translation: Asynchronous Javascript and (x)(ht)ml bring together some hot properties: Javascript, HTML and HTML with Javascript, and HTML, according to Julie Hanna Farris.
Well I agree with you that most portable TV's are a failure because the screen is too small, signal issues, etc... so I would have to agree that TV on a phone on an iPod/Phone isn't going to be appealing to too many people.
But I own a PSP for traveling... a bus to NYC or plan to LA goes buy a LOT faster with one of these gagets. I fill the memory card with TV shows from MythTV & bring a game. Its the one dual purpose gadget with a sufficently large high-quality screen IMHO. I think Sony is making a mistake by not pushing the video capabilities of the iPod... getting & trascoding video is 'supported' but method its time-consuming and requires a little know-how. Really, I see a (perhaps niche) market for it. Either way, I don't think we can argue that there is a market for dowloading TV shows and watching them on the computer commercial-free when we feel like it.
I'm reminded (only offhandedly) of an australian study of men & women in various work & social situations, where the participants were brought together and recorded, then afterwards asked to estimate the amount that other people spoke, or spoke over them. The results were quite curious. When speaking in social situations, men spoke 40% of the words women the rest - but the men estimated the women to speak up to four times as often as the men, and women also estimated women spoke more often than their measured percentages showed, guessing that other women spoke up to three times more often than men.
Well what's missing from this is WHEN the women talked. You see, women have the ability to talk and listen at the same time. Men can't do it - they call it "interrupting" and percieve it as attempts to dominate the conversation;)
I think you misunderstood me. My comment was a dig at NYC, not Germany, where public urination is frequent despite it being an obvious hygiene issue given the population density. It has nothing to do with modesty.
This really just sounds like management doesn't have the skill or the emotional maturity to actually deal with the problem, so instead, they sweep it under the rug.
Fair enough. But that begs the question - what do you do with a talented employee who is unbearable at times due situations outside the company's control (personal/psychological/etc problems)? It seems to me there comes a point where all you can do is say "get yourself together or don't bother coming in".
That's all it takes to secure it, provided your building is reasonably secure... as I would *hope* that anything that required locks and not just passwords would be in a secure data center elsewhere. I guess you could request a safe or something if cabinents were insufficent.
It seems like the larger issue is being evicted for the "Service Department". They're the ones that should be in cubes, but that's another story.
Yeah... it was actually on the way to my buddy's wedding. He got a ticket for about the same amount, they told him "they won't start without you".
But $40 doesn't sound bad at all. In Mass. you can't even get a speeding ticket for that little ($10 per mph over, minimum of $100), and yet no state has worse/faster drivers with the exception of New Jersey...
Nah, $260 is my record. But when you count what a speeding ticket does to your insurance rates (at least here in Mass/RI), I'd prefer the max open WiFi ticket.
The writers of the host operating systems that were *shipped* with obscene numbers of security holes are responsible for those outbreaks!
The users who are uninformed (ie - the box/manual doesn't say the software comes with security holes) are NOT responsible for the spread of malicious activity....
If a car manufacturer sells vehicles that crash all the time, they are forced to do a recall.
If a hardware manufacturer sells computers / laptops that have a material defect that can cause harm or property damage, they are forced to recall.
Isn't a software patch analogous to a hadware recall? IMHO, if an exploit is the result of ignoring the software makers instructions & patches, it is the users fault. However, if an exploit could not have been prevented by the advice of the software vendor, it is the vendors fault. Following your car analogy:
A car manufactuer reccomends a maintence schedule such as oil changes every 3-5k miles, brake/gasket/fluid/hoses checks every 20k miles, and so forth. If a driver ignores these reccomendations, and gets into an accident because his brakes were too worn down, is that the fault of the car manufacturer? I think not. Similarly, if a computer user fails to follow the reccomended maintience schedule (system scans/software updates/defragmentation/etc every month or so), the vendor cannot be blamed for instability or degraded performance.
If there is a defect in an automotive part, resulting accidents are the fault of the manufacturer. However, if the manufacturer identifies the problem and issues a satisfactory free recall, subsequent accidents from the defect are the fault of the driver ignoring the recall. Similarly, an exploit against the current version of the software is the fault of the manufacturer, where as an exploit on a previous version is negligence from the user.
Laws exist to prevent accidents (speed limits, etc), and safety devices exist to reduce their impact (seat belts, air bags, etc). Again, accidents & more sever damage caused by ignoring them is the drivers fault. Software makers reccomend analogous 'safety' devices - firewalls, encryption, backups, you name it. The failure to use them is your fault.
Lets face it, the VAST majority of problems out there are VERY easily avoided by keeping the system up to date & being only mildly intellegent what programs you install (or installing a virus/spyware scanner if you can't even figure that out). Its hot hard, and there is not shortage news coverage & light educational material out there. Laziness & ignorance is NO excuse for driving a dangerous car, and it shouldn't be an excuse for having a compromised machine.
Is this a response to the Google plans and various other implimentations of free wireless?
I doubt it. There is a difference between 'free' and 'open & insecure'. I don't live in San Francisco (sadly), so I haven't kept up with their implementation, but I imagine they have some method of logging in and identifying their users. I suppose having an open wirless network could be a breach of contract with some of the ISP's out there though.
If you were up to no good is an open AP the way to do it?
Absolutley. How could they identify you? The IP(s) are registered to the unsuspecting owner. The only record that would be left is the MAC on the AP, and AFAIK its rather difficult to identify someone by a MAC, since you can just buy a NIC off the shelf and/or spoof it.
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That's exactly why you shouldn't get a powerbook. If your IT staff can't even properly support Windows machines in a secure environment, what makes you think they'll know fuck-all about supporting a Mac in that same environment? (Much less like you any more for adding to their existing headaches)
I don't think thats the problem. IMHO, the issue is more hardware than software related... PC laptops just suck. PC makers operate on razor thin margins - which means cheap (and often proprietary) parts, gawd-awful, tech support, and an enormous number of models. Microsoft has taken on the impossible task of supporting what feels like an infinite number of piss-poor hardware configurations, and though they've done a fairly good job in that respect, there is just no way the machines will be as stable as Apple's controled & limited line. Period. Regardless of how good (or bad) your in-house IT department is.
I've become rather disgusted with all of the PC makers out there, so I started building my own machines with QUALITY interchangable parts that I could fix myself and never looked back. I couldn't do that when it came time for a laptop, so I gave Apple a shot not because I was a fanboy or hated Windows, but because I felt like they were the only manufacutrer that didn't juse junk parts and or cripple their support/parts department.
Granted, I'm quite platform agnostic (though OSX is growning on me) as all of my time is spent doing database administration or writing Java/PHP/AJAX, but I don't think I'm in the minority for my reasons for switching to Apple notebooks. I still find PC desktops more cost-effective in terms of hardware and support/repair/maintence cost, but Intel chips and a reasonable price drop in the PowerMacs might change my mind.
The list does not leave much for an 18-year-old PHP developer with special interest in UNIX and overall network, web and server security.
I mean no disrespect, but go to college - preferably in a tech center (SanFran or Boston in particular) - you'll have far more opprotunities. I'm not doubting your abilities, but '18-year-old PHP developer' has risky written all over it from the employer's perspective. Its too easy to know a little PHP and UNIX, but know nothing about computer science fundamentals. There are great internships/co-ops/work with profs available to students, and you'll be orders of magnitude more employable as a graduate. Besides, college is more fun than work anyways.
I fail to see how that is any different than a quick taskmgr->processes. Simply viewing the processes (and their owner/status/etc) on either platform offer little insight as to if a legit process (or ps/taskmgr itself) is rooted.
I think a hardware keylogger would be a lot easier to spot than a software keylogger to the average 'non-tech' user.
Then you sir, have never helped a non-tech friend/relative 'fix their broken computer' only to discover that something was unplugged. Its mind boggling, but the sheer volume of cables behind the average PC (despite being simple and color-coded) means that the user pays little attention to them. Though I haven't seen one, I don't imagine a hardware key logger is hugely different in size/shape than a PS/2-USB converter. Plenty of people have those on their machines, don't know what they are, and don't question them.
I really like the idea and could have some very cool applications. But I'm not sure less-tech savy users would be one of them.
I mean, it seems like a bit of a catch 22 to market an active security solution (ie, think about security before every transaction, instead of a one-time install) to a group who has security problems precicely because they don't want to concern themselves with security 24/7.
Uhh.. given that the parent reads "if you're capable of tweaking the modelines in XF86Config, you're probably able to find the settings to turn off automatic bulletting." and his subsequent respnses to my post, I would beg to differ.
Yes, but conversely, the area is expensive because it is a desirable place to live in. Which means more good talent, which means companies want to move in too. New York and San Francisco are outrageously expensive too, but it would be premature to call them doomed.
Kind of a tangent, but when talking about Massachusetts the discussion revolves around Boston. Romney is responsible for the entire state, and there is a lot of potential in some of the surronding second-tier cities like Worcester (close to Boston, tons of great schools, low cost of living, etc) to experience revivals similar to nearby Providence's by attracting companies that are drawn to Boston but cannot afford it.
Competitors in Canada & Europe have a great advantage which we are literally killing ourselves to maintain for them
Last I checked, the unemployment in Europe and Canada is higher than it is in the US. Sure you don't have to factor heath care costs in for your employees, but you factor the crushing tax burden in instead... nevermind the difficulty of firing someone in a near-socalist state. I don't think we're maintaining foreign heath care systems either; its just that the US legal system is broken. The cost of medical overhead - outrageous lawsuits, malpractice insurance, and FDA aproval are really the root problems of heath care cost. The lack of such nonsense is the reason Canadian drugs & treatment is so much cheaper.
I'm quite aware of the cost of heath care in the Greater Boston area. But if the cost of heath care drastically changes the equation, I have a suspicion that you wouldn't be paying these would-be employees all that large salaries anyways. In which case, why not just offer the job without heath care benifits and/or hire co-ops/interns?
..but I suspect that this is intended to be flexible mostly in an upward direction...
Perhaps they're trying to promote the ablum, rather than just singles?
At a buck a pop, iTunes is only appealing (to me) to pick up the gems on an otherwise unknown and/or poor album. Otherwise, I just buy the album and rip it. By pricing singles higher, they make more and it's still is more cost efficent for me to use iTunes. By pricing the other tracks lower, it increasing the chances that I'll take a shot on a song that I haven't heard before.
Granted, X's configuration has come a ways since the whole XFree/Xorg fork, but yes a misconfigured X can damage your monitor, and yes I've seen an autodetect that would do so. My c:/windows/tmp doesn't have any more old junk than my /tmp. I just think that you're being rather forgiving of X & Linux, and rather nit-picky of Office & MS. If I was to come up with a lists of what they each 'do poorly', the lists would be different but equal in length.
I don't mind spending five minutes editing a well-documented file format, ONCE, to get X to work.
I do mind having to spend ten minutes digging through random menu options to get a software program to not do something dumb.
Um, I would qualify X 'auto-detecting' resolutions and refresh rates that could reduce my monitor to smoldering plastic as 'somthing dumb' too, and calling it 'well-documented' is the exaggeration of the day. Tools->options->autoCorrect doesn't take 10 minutes, does it?
I mean, there's a lot of stuff MS does poorly, but Office is not one of them (actually, I think Office:Mac is the finest version, but thats a tangent). Seems like we've crossed the line from honest critique to irrational hatred...
How long will it be until Google blankets the entire nation? I sure hope they get over here to the east coast pretty soon, cause I'm paying through the nose for Adelphia.
Tell me about it. Perhaps its wishful thinking on my part, but what are the odds that Boston is next on the list after Silicon Valley? High population density & tons of tech buisnesses and universities, and small enough that its feisable....
AJAX brings together some hot properties, Javascript, HTML/DHTML and HTML, according to Julie Hanna Farris
Translation: Asynchronous Javascript and (x)(ht)ml bring together some hot properties: Javascript, HTML and HTML with Javascript, and HTML, according to Julie Hanna Farris.
Well I agree with you that most portable TV's are a failure because the screen is too small, signal issues, etc... so I would have to agree that TV on a phone on an iPod/Phone isn't going to be appealing to too many people.
But I own a PSP for traveling... a bus to NYC or plan to LA goes buy a LOT faster with one of these gagets. I fill the memory card with TV shows from MythTV & bring a game. Its the one dual purpose gadget with a sufficently large high-quality screen IMHO. I think Sony is making a mistake by not pushing the video capabilities of the iPod... getting & trascoding video is 'supported' but method its time-consuming and requires a little know-how. Really, I see a (perhaps niche) market for it. Either way, I don't think we can argue that there is a market for dowloading TV shows and watching them on the computer commercial-free when we feel like it.
I'm reminded (only offhandedly) of an australian study of men & women in various work & social situations, where the participants were brought together and recorded, then afterwards asked to estimate the amount that other people spoke, or spoke over them. The results were quite curious. When speaking in social situations, men spoke 40% of the words women the rest - but the men estimated the women to speak up to four times as often as the men, and women also estimated women spoke more often than their measured percentages showed, guessing that other women spoke up to three times more often than men.
;)
Well what's missing from this is WHEN the women talked. You see, women have the ability to talk and listen at the same time. Men can't do it - they call it "interrupting" and percieve it as attempts to dominate the conversation
I think you misunderstood me. My comment was a dig at NYC, not Germany, where public urination is frequent despite it being an obvious hygiene issue given the population density. It has nothing to do with modesty.
Public urination too. It seems to be a God-given right over there, for reasons I don't quite understand.
This really just sounds like management doesn't have the skill or the emotional maturity to actually deal with the problem, so instead, they sweep it under the rug.
Fair enough. But that begs the question - what do you do with a talented employee who is unbearable at times due situations outside the company's control (personal/psychological/etc problems)? It seems to me there comes a point where all you can do is say "get yourself together or don't bother coming in".
Because overly cheery co-workes are almost as irritating.
I mean, telling people not to whine to the point of being unberable is one thing. Telling them to pretend to be cheery all the time is another.
is over the top, but there are few things more irratating & detremental to productivity than an angry/whiny co-worker.
That's all it takes to secure it, provided your building is reasonably secure... as I would *hope* that anything that required locks and not just passwords would be in a secure data center elsewhere. I guess you could request a safe or something if cabinents were insufficent.
It seems like the larger issue is being evicted for the "Service Department". They're the ones that should be in cubes, but that's another story.
Yeah... it was actually on the way to my buddy's wedding. He got a ticket for about the same amount, they told him "they won't start without you".
But $40 doesn't sound bad at all. In Mass. you can't even get a speeding ticket for that little ($10 per mph over, minimum of $100), and yet no state has worse/faster drivers with the exception of New Jersey...
Nah, $260 is my record. But when you count what a speeding ticket does to your insurance rates (at least here in Mass/RI), I'd prefer the max open WiFi ticket.
The users who are uninformed (ie - the box/manual doesn't say the software comes with security holes) are NOT responsible for the spread of malicious activity....
If a car manufacturer sells vehicles that crash all the time, they are forced to do a recall.
If a hardware manufacturer sells computers / laptops that have a material defect that can cause harm or property damage, they are forced to recall.
Isn't a software patch analogous to a hadware recall? IMHO, if an exploit is the result of ignoring the software makers instructions & patches, it is the users fault. However, if an exploit could not have been prevented by the advice of the software vendor, it is the vendors fault. Following your car analogy:
Lets face it, the VAST majority of problems out there are VERY easily avoided by keeping the system up to date & being only mildly intellegent what programs you install (or installing a virus/spyware scanner if you can't even figure that out). Its hot hard, and there is not shortage news coverage & light educational material out there. Laziness & ignorance is NO excuse for driving a dangerous car, and it shouldn't be an excuse for having a compromised machine.
Is this a response to the Google plans and various other implimentations of free wireless?
I doubt it. There is a difference between 'free' and 'open & insecure'. I don't live in San Francisco (sadly), so I haven't kept up with their implementation, but I imagine they have some method of logging in and identifying their users. I suppose having an open wirless network could be a breach of contract with some of the ISP's out there though.
If you were up to no good is an open AP the way to do it?
Absolutley. How could they identify you? The IP(s) are registered to the unsuspecting owner. The only record that would be left is the MAC on the AP, and AFAIK its rather difficult to identify someone by a MAC, since you can just buy a NIC off the shelf and/or spoof it.