Critical problems are not held back until patch Tuesday. However they are not released until at least some tests have been run on them
If you examine the monthly load of patches, you will find that it regularly occurs that critical or important patches are released on patch tuesday that have been compiled weeks or even more than a month before.
Now, you would think that would give them some time to test. However, the results of those tests are not used to determine if a patch is going to be released the next patch tuesday! For example, the latest cumulative IE patch (KB918899) was released last month on patch tuesday, even though it was known inside Microsoft that it had a fatal flaw for users of Windows 2000 and XP SP1, and a fix for that flaw had already been compiled early last month. The "critical" fix was pushed out on patch tuesday nonetheless, damaging businesses that use certain web-interfaced software.
The affected users had to request the temporary fix, and later the KB918899 patch was re-released (two times even) to fix the problems. Given this situation, I would prefer them to release the patches as soon as they are available, or at least inform the admins when they release critical patches for which flaws are known and fixes are already available or will be available shortly (before the next patch tuesday). Then, at least admins can decide to wait a while.
No way to disable the menu, without going in and re-writing the XUL code.
This is not true. There certainly is a lot of room for improvement in the Firefox configuration settings management, but what you write can be accomplished by using a locked preferences file. (assuming that your users cannot write in the Program Files directory and you install Firefox using some automatic installation system)
I have two big stacks of "set-top-boxes" and other A/V related equipment, and I would appreciate it when manufacturers, even if they do not want to stick to 17" cabinets, at least put their products into square boxes that allow some stacking.
When everyone starts to use cases like this, space below my TV runs out very quickly...
But again, serving 2 websites and e-mail is NOT what the average user wants to do with a PC. Neither is using the commandline and omitting X.
Having Windows 98 users convert to commandline Linux is hardly going to be productive and/or appreciated. You could impress them with Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Skype etc running under KDE (or Gnome), but that is not going to work well on a typical Windows 98 PC. Lack of memory, lack of processor performance, lack of diskspace, lack of disk performance, poor screen resolution are all going to be issues.
Don't you require seat licenses to run Citrix sessions on non-Windows systems anyway? This would mean you need to buy a lot of licenses for your Linux clients, that you would not need when the clients ran XP. And that will become worthless once the bullet is bitten and those 40.000 low-end XP machines are finally bought. Or has this changed recently?
You can't realistically run Linux on a Windows-98-spec PC. It was possible in the days that those systems were current (8 years ago), but nowadays Linux distributions require XP/Vista-class machines.
The "you can run Linux on anything" myth is just that: a myth. Sure you can run a router/firewall on it, or you could use it as the processor of a large storage box for multimedia files (with some new diskdrives), but that is not what the average user wants to do. They want that graphical desktop with internet browser, office application, etc. Their PC will perform that function much better under Windows 98 than under Linux!
Programs which require Admin can be fixed with a quick round of cacls to fix write permissions to the install directory in question (if it's Program Files)
I know that, but:
1 - I consider those programs broken, and so does Microsoft
2 - I think the end-user should not be bothered by this, but the programmer should fix it or find a more adequate occupation.
Easy: use this method. when a given piece of software does not run, complain at its supplier. ask your money back. remove it from the system. spread the word far and wide.
Software that requires an admin account is soooooooooo 1995. it should be considered obsolete. When its supplier does not want to fix it, he deserves to go out of business.
When the user types in the search box in recent versions of Acrobat reader, while viewing a.pdf retrieved from the web, the reader performs a GET on the search keywords appended to the original location of the document (enclosed in double quotes). So, as a website owner you get the search terms used on your documents as 404 errors in the logfile. (I have not yet tried to answer those queries with a 200 response, who knows what happens then...)
DRM is not "protection", it is an insult to the consumer. It says "we assume you are a lawbreaker, and that you will violate copyright." It is presumption of guilt by fiat, the condemnation of one individual because of the acts of another (if it is even that), and nothing you can say will lift it one centimeter above those miserable goals.
You know what, the official policy of the US goverment is far worse than that! "people who have done bad things to us may have lived in your country. we think. so we attack your country, destroy your infrastructure, throw bombs on your civilians". Even though they have never done anything wrong, they are presented with agressors that demolish their property and send lies into the world about the purpose and goals of this activity.
And what is worst: a lot of American citizens actually support this policy. Small wonder that in such a country DRM systems are developed and supported.
future HDTV decoders (whether cable or satellite or even OTA) having nothing but DVI or HDMI connector
and then you want to buy a future HD recorder that has DVI input? I'm afraid you have to build that yourself, as no sensible equipment manufacturer will come up with one. of course there will be timeshifting HD receivers. when certain media companies try to limit their capabilities, the proper response is to boycott those companies. they don't have the right to single source of entertainment.
RGB? For the sake of argument, I will presume you refer to YPbPr rather than RGB
No. I am referring to RGB. The RGB that every TV manufactured the past 25 years has, available over here in Europe, and also is found on every computer monitor since the VGA standard was introduced. When TVs in your country don't have RGB inputs, you must be held back by manufacturers. At least the picture tubes, that are the same all over the world, operate on RGB signals. Every other signal must first be converted to RGB before it is sent to the cathodes (or these days the LCD). There is no point in arguing that another color system has better quality, when all other systems (including component, s-video and composite) end up being converted to RGB.
HDMI enables HDCP and *that* isn't something you want to do.
Is capturing a DVI signal and then recording it something you want to do? I don't think so. HDCP protects a DVI signal. That has a very high bitrate and it takes quite some effort to compress it back into the recorded material. When you want to record something, you record the MPEG2 (or whatever compression standard) material, not the decoded output. So, HDCP is not really a problem.
Component, thus far, is the best of the best.
Why do you consider Component the best? What was wrong with RGB that it needed to be replaced?
My point is that the SuSE Firewall is a SuSE product, other products are available that do the same thing, yet you cannot uninstall it because other parts of the system have been coded as "depend on" SuSE firewall (and not "a firewall").
I know it is possible to remove it, but the same is true for Internet Explorer. You only need to know how, and you must have a real intention to go forward with it. It is not like you have a free choice to select the firewall you want (or decide to work without one, e.g. behind another firewall).
Of course, the situation is much better than with Windows. But it is not like "with Linux you are free to choose your own software and with Windows you are not". Especially for users without in-depth knowledge, the options are always somewhat limited.
This seems reasonable, but are the Linux vendors taking this approach?
When I install SuSE Linux, it installs SuSE Firewall. When I want to uninstall it, a whole list of other items that "depend on" this SuSE Firewall pop up, hindering its removal. The best thing I can do is "disable firewall", but it still remains installed (mostly a set of scripts to manipulate a very complex set of iptables rules that never gets loaded because it is disabled).
Also, are you sure "security" and "optional components" would remain limited to a list like that? For example, one would like to see: [ ] Only allow signed drivers to be used in the system
Using radio gives a build-out cost of $0 per household.
This is of course nonsense. Using radio is quite expensive compared to other technologies, especially when the others are using existing cable or other infrastructure. The radio equipment usually costs more than the modem equipment for other technologies, and the other costs are the same.
Also, don't forget that "munucipal Wi-Fi" really cannot be compared to cable or adsl, let alone ftth. Those provide a lot more bandwidth per subscriber, which is required to use the link for IPTV and other real-time media services.
Well, each Xeon processor also shows up as two threads. So it is not only on Pentium 4. Maybe someone with XP Professional on a Pentium-D can tell how many processors show up in the taskmanager and the NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS environment variable.
I'm looking for a kind of "PXE bootselector". We use PXE for PC Windows installs and use a 3com tool (IMGEDIT) which creates a menu and can create.img files that basically are floppy images that you can select and boot. This can be used to start a Windows install, a manufacturer diagnostic disk, an old partition magic floppy, etc.
However, because of memory management issues it seems to be impossible to use certain programs, including a Linux installer, from there. When I want to experiment with using a PXE Linux install, or tools like bpbatch, I need to reconfig the DHCP server to direct the client to that image instead of the menu image created by the 3com tool.
I would like to find a "bootselector" that allows selection of the PXE image to boot from the system that is being booted at that time, not by editing a config on the server. It already amazed me that there is no way to pass some parameter from the booted system to the PXE server (e.g. by pressing a key during boot) which I could check in the DHCP config, but maybe it could be solved by a secondary loader as found in the bootsector of a harddisk?
On a Win 2k system, a pentium-D shows up as 2 processors. But so does a pentium-4 (hyperthreading). Shouldn't a pentium-D show up as 4 processors? (2 cores, each with 2 threads) Does it on XP?
Are the two processors showing up on Win 2k the two cores (without hyperthreading option), or are they two threads on one core and is the other core not used?
The company is offering one year of free credit monitoring to people whose Social Security numbers were on the tapes.
I am not a US citizen, and I wonder why an SSN is secret information that has power w.r.t. credit. We do have a similar number, but it essentially is public information. It is printed on all letters from the tax office and social security (related) offices, and soon will be used by all government and municipality related offices. It is on your passport, your driver's license, it is everywhere. It would be very unwise to assume that it is somehow secret. Why would knowing this number give you more power than knowing someone's telephone or bank account number? (similar public info)
There must be a weak security system in place, which can simply be replaced. Declare the SSN a public item and all the issues around leaking it are moot.
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Critical problems are not held back until patch Tuesday. However they are not released until at least some tests have been run on them
If you examine the monthly load of patches, you will find that it regularly occurs that critical or important patches are released on patch tuesday that have been compiled weeks or even more than a month before.
Now, you would think that would give them some time to test. However, the results of those tests are not used to determine if a patch is going to be released the next patch tuesday!
For example, the latest cumulative IE patch (KB918899) was released last month on patch tuesday, even though it was known inside Microsoft that it had a fatal flaw for users of Windows 2000 and XP SP1, and a fix for that flaw had already been compiled early last month. The "critical" fix was pushed out on patch tuesday nonetheless, damaging businesses that use certain web-interfaced software.
The affected users had to request the temporary fix, and later the KB918899 patch was re-released (two times even) to fix the problems.
Given this situation, I would prefer them to release the patches as soon as they are available, or at least inform the admins when they release critical patches for which flaws are known and fixes are already available or will be available shortly (before the next patch tuesday).
Then, at least admins can decide to wait a while.
No way to disable the menu, without going in and re-writing the XUL code.
This is not true. There certainly is a lot of room for improvement in the Firefox configuration settings management, but what you write can be accomplished by using a locked preferences file.
(assuming that your users cannot write in the Program Files directory and you install Firefox using some automatic installation system)
I have two big stacks of "set-top-boxes" and other A/V related equipment, and I would appreciate it when manufacturers, even if they do not want to stick to 17" cabinets, at least put their products into square boxes that allow some stacking.
When everyone starts to use cases like this, space below my TV runs out very quickly...
But again, serving 2 websites and e-mail is NOT what the average user wants to do with a PC.
Neither is using the commandline and omitting X.
Having Windows 98 users convert to commandline Linux is hardly going to be productive and/or appreciated.
You could impress them with Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Skype etc running under KDE (or Gnome), but that is not going to work well on a typical Windows 98 PC.
Lack of memory, lack of processor performance, lack of diskspace, lack of disk performance, poor screen resolution are all going to be issues.
Don't you require seat licenses to run Citrix sessions on non-Windows systems anyway?
This would mean you need to buy a lot of licenses for your Linux clients, that you would not need when the clients ran XP. And that will become worthless once the bullet is bitten and those 40.000 low-end XP machines are finally bought.
Or has this changed recently?
You can't realistically run Linux on a Windows-98-spec PC.
It was possible in the days that those systems were current (8 years ago), but nowadays Linux distributions require XP/Vista-class machines.
The "you can run Linux on anything" myth is just that: a myth.
Sure you can run a router/firewall on it, or you could use it as the processor of a large storage box for multimedia files (with some new diskdrives), but that is not what the average user wants to do.
They want that graphical desktop with internet browser, office application, etc. Their PC will perform that function much better under Windows 98 than under Linux!
Programs which require Admin can be fixed with a quick round of cacls to fix write permissions to the install directory in question (if it's Program Files)
I know that, but:
1 - I consider those programs broken, and so does Microsoft
2 - I think the end-user should not be bothered by this, but the programmer should fix it or find a more adequate occupation.
Easy: use this method. when a given piece of software does not run, complain at its supplier. ask your money back. remove it from the system. spread the word far and wide.
Software that requires an admin account is soooooooooo 1995. it should be considered obsolete.
When its supplier does not want to fix it, he deserves to go out of business.
This "solution" looks rather limited to me. It will probably still break on URIBL lookups.
When the user types in the search box in recent versions of Acrobat reader, while viewing a .pdf retrieved from the web, the reader performs a GET on the search keywords appended to the original location of the document (enclosed in double quotes).
So, as a website owner you get the search terms used on your documents as 404 errors in the logfile.
(I have not yet tried to answer those queries with a 200 response, who knows what happens then...)
DRM is not "protection", it is an insult to the consumer. It says "we assume you are a lawbreaker, and that you will violate copyright." It is presumption of guilt by fiat, the condemnation of one individual because of the acts of another (if it is even that), and nothing you can say will lift it one centimeter above those miserable goals.
You know what, the official policy of the US goverment is far worse than that!
"people who have done bad things to us may have lived in your country. we think. so we attack your country, destroy your infrastructure, throw bombs on your civilians".
Even though they have never done anything wrong, they are presented with agressors that demolish their property and send lies into the world about the purpose and goals of this activity.
And what is worst: a lot of American citizens actually support this policy. Small wonder that in such a country DRM systems are developed and supported.
future HDTV decoders (whether cable or satellite or even OTA) having nothing but DVI or HDMI connector
and then you want to buy a future HD recorder that has DVI input? I'm afraid you have to build that yourself, as no sensible equipment manufacturer will come up with one.
of course there will be timeshifting HD receivers. when certain media companies try to limit their capabilities, the proper response is to boycott those companies. they don't have the right to single source of entertainment.
RGB? For the sake of argument, I will presume you refer to YPbPr rather than RGB
No. I am referring to RGB. The RGB that every TV manufactured the past 25 years has, available over here in Europe, and also is found on every computer monitor since the VGA standard was introduced.
When TVs in your country don't have RGB inputs, you must be held back by manufacturers. At least the picture tubes, that are the same all over the world, operate on RGB signals.
Every other signal must first be converted to RGB before it is sent to the cathodes (or these days the LCD). There is no point in arguing that another color system has better quality, when all other systems (including component, s-video and composite) end up being converted to RGB.
HDMI enables HDCP and *that* isn't something you want to do.
Is capturing a DVI signal and then recording it something you want to do? I don't think so.
HDCP protects a DVI signal. That has a very high bitrate and it takes quite some effort to compress it back into the recorded material.
When you want to record something, you record the MPEG2 (or whatever compression standard) material, not the decoded output.
So, HDCP is not really a problem.
Component, thus far, is the best of the best.
Why do you consider Component the best? What was wrong with RGB that it needed to be replaced?
I'd like the widget to toggle from the top to the side, but need to build a horizontal version of the widget.
I'd like the widget to go away!
Please provide the option for that.
(maybe it does something in Firefox? in Seamonkey it is just hovering there, providing me useless statistics but no useful function)
And then of course there is the "it can hold 1 minute of MP3 music at 128kbps". 60*128/8 = 960kB. But just before it says it was 5MB.
My point is that the SuSE Firewall is a SuSE product, other products are available that do the same thing, yet you cannot uninstall it because other parts of the system have been coded as "depend on" SuSE firewall (and not "a firewall").
I know it is possible to remove it, but the same is true for Internet Explorer. You only need to know how, and you must have a real intention to go forward with it. It is not like you have a free choice to select the firewall you want (or decide to work without one, e.g. behind another firewall).
Of course, the situation is much better than with Windows. But it is not like "with Linux you are free to choose your own software and with Windows you are not". Especially for users without in-depth knowledge, the options are always somewhat limited.
This seems reasonable, but are the Linux vendors taking this approach?
When I install SuSE Linux, it installs SuSE Firewall. When I want to uninstall it, a whole list of other items that "depend on" this SuSE Firewall pop up, hindering its removal.
The best thing I can do is "disable firewall", but it still remains installed (mostly a set of scripts to manipulate a very complex set of iptables rules that never gets loaded because it is disabled).
Also, are you sure "security" and "optional components" would remain limited to a list like that?
For example, one would like to see:
[ ] Only allow signed drivers to be used in the system
But wouldn't that require a metal pipe, not the plastic tubing typically used for gas?
It cannot be based on the waveguide principle, because gas pipes are made of plastic, not metal.
(or maybe the designer did not know this?)
since they have warning stickers at gas stations about pumping gasoline and using your cell phone at the same time
You should never confuse the presence of warning stickers with the presence of a real threat, especially in the USA.
Using radio gives a build-out cost of $0 per household.
This is of course nonsense. Using radio is quite expensive compared to other technologies, especially when the others are using existing cable or other infrastructure. The radio equipment usually costs more than the modem equipment for other technologies, and the other costs are the same.
Also, don't forget that "munucipal Wi-Fi" really cannot be compared to cable or adsl, let alone ftth. Those provide a lot more bandwidth per subscriber, which is required to use the link for IPTV and other real-time media services.
Well, each Xeon processor also shows up as two threads. So it is not only on Pentium 4.
Maybe someone with XP Professional on a Pentium-D can tell how many processors show up in the taskmanager and the NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS environment variable.
I'm looking for a kind of "PXE bootselector". We use PXE for PC Windows installs and use a 3com tool (IMGEDIT) which creates a menu and can create .img files that basically are floppy images that you can select and boot. This can be used to start a Windows install, a manufacturer diagnostic disk, an old partition magic floppy, etc.
However, because of memory management issues it seems to be impossible to use certain programs, including a Linux installer, from there.
When I want to experiment with using a PXE Linux install, or tools like bpbatch, I need to reconfig the DHCP server to direct the client to that image instead of the menu image created by the 3com tool.
I would like to find a "bootselector" that allows selection of the PXE image to boot from the system that is being booted at that time, not by editing a config on the server. It already amazed me that there is no way to pass some parameter from the booted system to the PXE server (e.g. by pressing a key during boot) which I could check in the DHCP config, but maybe it could be solved by a secondary loader as found in the bootsector of a harddisk?
On a Win 2k system, a pentium-D shows up as 2 processors. But so does a pentium-4 (hyperthreading).
Shouldn't a pentium-D show up as 4 processors? (2 cores, each with 2 threads)
Does it on XP?
Are the two processors showing up on Win 2k the two cores (without hyperthreading option), or are they two threads on one core and is the other core not used?
The company is offering one year of free credit monitoring to people whose Social Security numbers were on the tapes.
I am not a US citizen, and I wonder why an SSN is secret information that has power w.r.t. credit.
We do have a similar number, but it essentially is public information. It is printed on all letters from the tax office and social security (related) offices, and soon will be used by all government and municipality related offices. It is on your passport, your driver's license, it is everywhere.
It would be very unwise to assume that it is somehow secret.
Why would knowing this number give you more power than knowing someone's telephone or bank account number? (similar public info)
There must be a weak security system in place, which can simply be replaced. Declare the SSN a public item and all the issues around leaking it are moot.