Funny. Just bought a laptop last week and wint to Windows update as soon as it was on the network. 47 critical patches (some of which covered multiple things). There were a few other things....a driver update and a couple enhancements, but nothing wild and it worked perfectly. That does not even happen on Linux! I ain't saying using Windows Update has never broken a system, but they have been better recently.
Not to mention the fact that they should also be patched! Workstations ALWAYS get the short shrift yet how many times have they themselves been responsible for taking out the network? Automatic updating for servers are a no no but for workstations, they should be mandatory! If your a lazy admin and your sure none of your stuff will break from the autoupdater, go ahead and let them update the OS for you too. At least it would have been done!
Shame. If you had spent the time updating the workstations and servers your responsible for, you'd not be getting your ass kicked now. I mean the patch was issued almost a month ago!
AMEN! Someone who gets it! The Founding Fathers did not want the public to be able to just be run over buy the goverment that is supposed to be of the people by the people and for the people. I know our senators seem to forget this because of the voter apathy we have. 2nd amendment rights were setup to protect ourselves from the government when the government had over stepped it's bounds. There's also a line in there about the states maintaining a militia, but now if your a militia member people think your a vigilante or a criminal. THIS COUNTRY WAS CREATED BY MILITIA MEMBERS! A well armed militia is what we are supposed to have, but will never have now since I really doubt the government would let us have a Nuke or a F-14 in our back yard.
Must have been using Nautilus as the desktop. Remember, even if you close the nautilus window, if your using nautilus for doing icons and such on the desktop it is still running.
I might add that XP is a Multi User os....maybe at a low scale, but it is possible to have multiple users logged in on a windows machine.
I believe that the button disabling should be a optional feature. Make the normal behavior to eject it no matter what and the one where you mount it and want NOONE to unmount before another switch or something.
Only way it would break a old script is if they took the switch out completely. Leave the switch in and make check the format for gz compression. In any case, when do you write a script to decompress? I mean if it's installing a product, I can see, but if you are using the -x switch to extract, it still could check for compression and be ok. The old script would just gunzip the tarball. Then tar would just do it's thing. A new script would be a line shorter as the gunzip step would not be necessary.
Want to know why? The additional cost of printing the tracking codes or even putting RFID's will make the USPS charge extra for it. Unless the cost is raised beyond what it is now. USPS is kind of independent. The only reason I would like intelligent mail is it would give us ammo when the credit card companies screw up and cashes our check, but does not apply it to our account. We could bring the tracking info and prove they recieved it. I mean, honestly, if you do mail the "right" way now, it's already out in the open (return address). Also, people who are concerned about privacy should not send stuff through USPS NOW as it is. Keep in mind even if its a federal offense to open mail not addressed to you, what is to stop someone from doing just that? Just the glue on the paper.
Your right. They do. But odds are, the people don't give a rat's ass. I mean we geeks do only because we know this stuff. Joe Six Pack could give a rat's ass. If it was up to JSP, they'd still be using pencil and paper.
Contrary to popular belief, TV stations STILL spew RF. Try a good TV antenna or a set of Rabbit Ears. You can pick it up. You don't have to pay for cable....but you do have to settle for only NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, UPN and The WB. 6 Channels.....still better then the 3 we had when we were a kid.
Again, the price must be right. 30 a year is a decent price for most websites and if they could do it even cheaper, it would be even better. For online versions of Time, of course you'd give that to print subscribers, but how about a online version that is cheaper to subscribe to then the dead tree version? This would work great for Time and other print magazines. Less paper going out (lots would take the digital version) and less trees getting killed.
If it's already an online venture (Slashdot, Pocket PC Thoughts) use value adds to push it. Specifically, for wireless users, have a mobile site customoized for the PDA screen. PPC Thoughts does this....the free mobile site does not do near as much as the pay site and I LOVE being able to reply to forums on the PDA. Also, try to work deals with your advertisers to get a coupon or something to give the subscriber. PPC Thoughts also did this with Vaja. There are other things like customizing your online experience further than possible with the free site and lots of things that make reading PPC Thoughts easier to read. Subscriber giveaways are a bonus to do too especially if the sites operators can get those for free. Also, ad blocking is a excellent value add for subscribing. Point is, as Slashdot and several other geek oriented sites have proved, it is possible to make enough to stay alive and even a little above that. But will Joe Six-Pack pay? Make the content compelling and unusual (I WON'T pay for world news) and people will pay. Have a free version available and that will entice them to subscribe.
Yeah. No silly need to do all of that because it isn't really doing anything. Most Netware boxes only do file sharing and print sharing. That's it. Some apps are run (Groupwise) but almost no mission critical things are run on it (well, in our shop anyway). Things are better now in Netware land at work, but just 5 years ago, we'd have problems regularly with Netware. Groupwise would corrupt it's datatbase. Other things like that. Granted, some of these were self inflicted, but saying Netware never crashes is like saying Mac OSX never crashes either. Sure, their pretty stable, but never is a long time and I bet both OS's have had issues at one time or another. My biggest issue as of late is the way our login scripts are locked down. We used to be able to add things and edit our own world if we know enough. Well, that ain't allowed anymore.
AND that has nothing to do with the FCC. That's a budgetary thing within the company who made the device. Just like it's possible to make modems that are not hardware based, it's possible to have a software based WiFi card (from what you're saying, most of these are software based). Ok, a NON software based WiFI card with everything hardwired is possible to make a illegal configuration? Not as likely as a hacked software driver. I got news for you....everything under the sun that has a RF circuit in it is POSSIBLE to make it illegal. In fact, some ham rigs are able to be modded for our of band transmit and unblocking cell freqs by just pressing keys. SO, then a hardware based WiFi card is also able to be modified and so is a software based one. No, this issue with non support of OS's other then Linux because there's no money in it for them. Sure, we could buy their stuff, but then why? My WiFi card works fine under Linux. There are lists of cards that work fine under Linux(with GPL'd drivers). So why would I buy any others? It's POSSIBLE to make ANY device....software driven or not, illegal. Having a law saying that a card's software must be closed or a company using the possible illegal use of there hardware as a excuse for not releasing driver code is just that....an Excuse. If their hardware design can't stop the software from doing certain things then that's just bad design.
And with exception of the different channels availale for WiFi, why would the hardware need to be changed in such a way by software to transmit somewhere else? Why complicate your driver? Just hardware lock the WiFi card and the driver just has to select a channel. There's no reason for the software to directly change he frequency beyond picking one of the channels. Also, again, where is the reg from thr FCC stating this? This is just an excuse the company uses for not providing info on their card so others can write a driver. Of course the FCC says you can't xmit anywhere but the stated freqs but again, why would a driver controll the frequency beyond picking a channel?
And they do this by getting rid of the heat generating transformer. They put that in a wall wart or a cord wart (little box the dc cord comes out of and the ac cord plugs into). Thus no fan needed. Yes laptops run on DC, but those cords that run and chargfe it all when it's dead are run off of ac.
BTW, I was informed by our Novell folks that when Netware 7 ships(if it has not shipped already), it will be shipping with a Linux Kernel instead of a DOS Kernel. Novell will finally be able to multitask well.
Novell made a excellent choice. Linux and UNIX are going to be in the enterprise and Novell itself will even be in this camp. They can improve upon both Evolution and Groupwise with this as they can integrate Groupwise ability into Evolution, and they can add the Exchange connector to the Groupwise server product itself. They have already been shipping Apache and now they can finally make the move to a gui for alot of things. Novell attempted to do this a few years back, but the admins all still used the commandline. I expect that admins still will use command line, but now they have a GUI to use on top of Novell that they can give the users low end desktops and they would be able to access it from any computer in the enterprise. This is a good decision and one that could bring Novell back to the forfront. It was not long ago lots of us were praising Novell. Actually, in the pc server realm, it was the only game in town as little as 10-12 years back.
Re:Nice....
on
FCC Goes WiFi
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Yep. And for once I am happy about it. WiFi is cheap in the grand scheme of things. What they bought like 3 AP's for the DC office? That's not alot of our Tax Dollars being wasted. And for once, the FCC may have a clue!
Re:now if only
on
FCC Goes WiFi
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· Score: 2, Informative
What reg? The only thing holding back GPL'd drivers for WiFi may be the manufacturers. The FCC won't care about device drivers. They casre about the design of the device. It would be pretty hard with software to make a WiFi card be anything but a WiFi card. Not saying it ain't possible, but highly unlikely.
That article was incredible. Those film camera's were toast. It's amazing how close this guy got to the thing. One can only imagine what happened seconds after the last frame was shot. This is a testament to the man as well as the technology. Bill Biggart, you were an incredible man. Thanks for posting that link.
Yes and they aren't droppign anything surprisingly. NOONE tops Xerox in production printing. NOONE! We have a whole campus full of Xerox tech and they have some of the best products around. I wish that they would release VIPP for other manufacturer use as well. Just finished a course on it. VIPP is basically a modified postscript, but it's much more powerful. Feed the printer a tableful of data (comma delimited) with a proper dbm file on the printer (or a jdt for line mode) and you can create letters and even graphs. Plus Xerox makes a FULL COLOR printer that prints 60 ppm! Sure, it's huge, but anything that prints that fast is. Plus the Phasers they make now can understand not just postscript but VIPP as well. There is a chance that Xerox could possibly release VIPP at some point as it's very good and based on postscript in the first place. VIPP is their most open product they have. I doubt they will release it, but printing would change if they did! They aren't so much copier heads any more. Production printing is where it's at and they can make lots of money there.
I agree. I frankly don't see what's so wrong with Disney. Sure, their shows and movies are popular. But the REALLY popular ones are popular because they are good. REAL GOOD! That's not to say that Disney has not made any stinkers....Anyone ever seen any movie with some semi famous kid star in it? They usually are not Disney's best. But the animation in their animated flicks is amazing....even today. The Lion King is still popular evenafter all of these years. It's even a musical now.
Speaking of thier other views, specifically the homosexual ones, I have never heard any stories about that. On the other hand, as much against homosexuality I am, I don't treat them any differently (unless they, you know, come on to me....). I hate what they do, not they themselves. So would I give a homosexual a job? Yes. Would I inivte them to dinner? You bet! Would I join in sin with them? No way.
IN any case, I see nothing wrong with Disney tracking their guests. Maybe they will then realize better spots to put bathrooms and stuff. All the better. Just don't track who bought them and your ok by me!
Believe in the Beast, but not the "computer" Beast
on
The Beast of Brussels
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· Score: 0
Believe in the literal translation of the beast. The one in the bible. Believe in the literal translation of the mark (666 on the forehead). Anyone who believes that a computer can be all knowing is full of himself. First, the computer would have to have enough storage not just to know what you look like, but to know you. To know your EVERY thought. To know your every memory. Consider that. Then realize how stupid it sounds in saying a computer could be made to do this. Even IBM's ESS would not have the storage capacity for ONE humans memory let alone all of the other stuff it would have to know to be all knowing. This is why I say believe in the Beast, but not as a computer, but as what the bible says the beast is. To believe anything other than this is to believe in what would really be a lesser image of the beast.
Should we fear computers and RFID tags that are setup to collect informatiion from us? Well, that depends. Personally I don't care if the computer knows that a person from my zip code bought x item. If this is the way they tracked it, it could be very useful to the marketer, but not as onerous sounding as if the tracked it specifically to you or specifically to your address.
I personally am fine with RFID use as I doubt a RFID small enough to be put on clothing would work very much beyond the distance of the store, and I also doubt that the store would leave it active after you left anyway since that would make it a bit hard of you to go back in to the store without setting off alarms! So I am not scared of RFID's.
What I don't want to see is the gunpowder in ammo be tagged. That is one of the latest things that they want to do for guns. If they did this and you accidently shot something like a endagered owl or something, they could track it at least back to the stor ethat sold the bullet and maybe back to you and charge you with something that may not be your fault! They want to do this in the name of making it easier to find murders which it would not do in the least. If this happens, the murders could switch to myskets....seriously. No, I think what is needed is fo rthe cops to patrol a bit more instead of them parking themselves at the local Tim Horton's or Dunkin Donuts!:) IE REAL POLICE WORK!
Yes this is true......unless the stripe reader has any sort of logic to it. It could encrypt the sequence and driver software could decrypt it. Then again, this points out why PHYSICAL security is as important as software/OS level security....IE you have these suckers inaccessible and keep them OFF the internet.
Yes they can. We're going to use a PC to authentica credit cards and the mag stripe reader just piggybacks onto the keyboard. There are also USB varients out there as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny. Just bought a laptop last week and wint to Windows update as soon as it was on the network. 47 critical patches (some of which covered multiple things). There were a few other things....a driver update and a couple enhancements, but nothing wild and it worked perfectly. That does not even happen on Linux! I ain't saying using Windows Update has never broken a system, but they have been better recently.
And what are the odds that the DMV's terminal programs would be affected by a OS update? Close to zero probably.
Not to mention the fact that they should also be patched! Workstations ALWAYS get the short shrift yet how many times have they themselves been responsible for taking out the network? Automatic updating for servers are a no no but for workstations, they should be mandatory! If your a lazy admin and your sure none of your stuff will break from the autoupdater, go ahead and let them update the OS for you too. At least it would have been done!
Shame. If you had spent the time updating the workstations and servers your responsible for, you'd not be getting your ass kicked now. I mean the patch was issued almost a month ago!
AMEN! Someone who gets it! The Founding Fathers did not want the public to be able to just be run over buy the goverment that is supposed to be of the people by the people and for the people. I know our senators seem to forget this because of the voter apathy we have. 2nd amendment rights were setup to protect ourselves from the government when the government had over stepped it's bounds. There's also a line in there about the states maintaining a militia, but now if your a militia member people think your a vigilante or a criminal. THIS COUNTRY WAS CREATED BY MILITIA MEMBERS! A well armed militia is what we are supposed to have, but will never have now since I really doubt the government would let us have a Nuke or a F-14 in our back yard.
Must have been using Nautilus as the desktop. Remember, even if you close the nautilus window, if your using nautilus for doing icons and such on the desktop it is still running.
I might add that XP is a Multi User os....maybe at a low scale, but it is possible to have multiple users logged in on a windows machine.
I believe that the button disabling should be a optional feature. Make the normal behavior to eject it no matter what and the one where you mount it and want NOONE to unmount before another switch or something.
Only way it would break a old script is if they took the switch out completely. Leave the switch in and make check the format for gz compression. In any case, when do you write a script to decompress? I mean if it's installing a product, I can see, but if you are using the -x switch to extract, it still could check for compression and be ok. The old script would just gunzip the tarball. Then tar would just do it's thing. A new script would be a line shorter as the gunzip step would not be necessary.
Want to know why? The additional cost of printing the tracking codes or even putting RFID's will make the USPS charge extra for it. Unless the cost is raised beyond what it is now. USPS is kind of independent. The only reason I would like intelligent mail is it would give us ammo when the credit card companies screw up and cashes our check, but does not apply it to our account. We could bring the tracking info and prove they recieved it. I mean, honestly, if you do mail the "right" way now, it's already out in the open (return address). Also, people who are concerned about privacy should not send stuff through USPS NOW as it is. Keep in mind even if its a federal offense to open mail not addressed to you, what is to stop someone from doing just that? Just the glue on the paper.
Your right. They do. But odds are, the people don't give a rat's ass. I mean we geeks do only because we know this stuff. Joe Six Pack could give a rat's ass. If it was up to JSP, they'd still be using pencil and paper.
Contrary to popular belief, TV stations STILL spew RF. Try a good TV antenna or a set of Rabbit Ears. You can pick it up. You don't have to pay for cable....but you do have to settle for only NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, UPN and The WB. 6 Channels.....still better then the 3 we had when we were a kid.
Again, the price must be right. 30 a year is a decent price for most websites and if they could do it even cheaper, it would be even better. For online versions of Time, of course you'd give that to print subscribers, but how about a online version that is cheaper to subscribe to then the dead tree version? This would work great for Time and other print magazines. Less paper going out (lots would take the digital version) and less trees getting killed.
If it's already an online venture (Slashdot, Pocket PC Thoughts) use value adds to push it. Specifically, for wireless users, have a mobile site customoized for the PDA screen. PPC Thoughts does this....the free mobile site does not do near as much as the pay site and I LOVE being able to reply to forums on the PDA. Also, try to work deals with your advertisers to get a coupon or something to give the subscriber. PPC Thoughts also did this with Vaja. There are other things like customizing your online experience further than possible with the free site and lots of things that make reading PPC Thoughts easier to read. Subscriber giveaways are a bonus to do too especially if the sites operators can get those for free. Also, ad blocking is a excellent value add for subscribing. Point is, as Slashdot and several other geek oriented sites have proved, it is possible to make enough to stay alive and even a little above that. But will Joe Six-Pack pay? Make the content compelling and unusual (I WON'T pay for world news) and people will pay. Have a free version available and that will entice them to subscribe.
Yeah. No silly need to do all of that because it isn't really doing anything. Most Netware boxes only do file sharing and print sharing. That's it. Some apps are run (Groupwise) but almost no mission critical things are run on it (well, in our shop anyway). Things are better now in Netware land at work, but just 5 years ago, we'd have problems regularly with Netware. Groupwise would corrupt it's datatbase. Other things like that. Granted, some of these were self inflicted, but saying Netware never crashes is like saying Mac OSX never crashes either. Sure, their pretty stable, but never is a long time and I bet both OS's have had issues at one time or another. My biggest issue as of late is the way our login scripts are locked down. We used to be able to add things and edit our own world if we know enough. Well, that ain't allowed anymore.
AND that has nothing to do with the FCC. That's a budgetary thing within the company who made the device. Just like it's possible to make modems that are not hardware based, it's possible to have a software based WiFi card (from what you're saying, most of these are software based). Ok, a NON software based WiFI card with everything hardwired is possible to make a illegal configuration? Not as likely as a hacked software driver. I got news for you....everything under the sun that has a RF circuit in it is POSSIBLE to make it illegal. In fact, some ham rigs are able to be modded for our of band transmit and unblocking cell freqs by just pressing keys. SO, then a hardware based WiFi card is also able to be modified and so is a software based one. No, this issue with non support of OS's other then Linux because there's no money in it for them. Sure, we could buy their stuff, but then why? My WiFi card works fine under Linux. There are lists of cards that work fine under Linux(with GPL'd drivers). So why would I buy any others? It's POSSIBLE to make ANY device....software driven or not, illegal. Having a law saying that a card's software must be closed or a company using the possible illegal use of there hardware as a excuse for not releasing driver code is just that....an Excuse. If their hardware design can't stop the software from doing certain things then that's just bad design.
And with exception of the different channels availale for WiFi, why would the hardware need to be changed in such a way by software to transmit somewhere else? Why complicate your driver? Just hardware lock the WiFi card and the driver just has to select a channel. There's no reason for the software to directly change he frequency beyond picking one of the channels. Also, again, where is the reg from thr FCC stating this? This is just an excuse the company uses for not providing info on their card so others can write a driver. Of course the FCC says you can't xmit anywhere but the stated freqs but again, why would a driver controll the frequency beyond picking a channel?
And they do this by getting rid of the heat generating transformer. They put that in a wall wart or a cord wart (little box the dc cord comes out of and the ac cord plugs into). Thus no fan needed. Yes laptops run on DC, but those cords that run and chargfe it all when it's dead are run off of ac.
BTW, I was informed by our Novell folks that when Netware 7 ships(if it has not shipped already), it will be shipping with a Linux Kernel instead of a DOS Kernel. Novell will finally be able to multitask well.
Novell made a excellent choice. Linux and UNIX are going to be in the enterprise and Novell itself will even be in this camp. They can improve upon both Evolution and Groupwise with this as they can integrate Groupwise ability into Evolution, and they can add the Exchange connector to the Groupwise server product itself. They have already been shipping Apache and now they can finally make the move to a gui for alot of things. Novell attempted to do this a few years back, but the admins all still used the commandline. I expect that admins still will use command line, but now they have a GUI to use on top of Novell that they can give the users low end desktops and they would be able to access it from any computer in the enterprise. This is a good decision and one that could bring Novell back to the forfront. It was not long ago lots of us were praising Novell. Actually, in the pc server realm, it was the only game in town as little as 10-12 years back.
Yep. And for once I am happy about it. WiFi is cheap in the grand scheme of things. What they bought like 3 AP's for the DC office? That's not alot of our Tax Dollars being wasted. And for once, the FCC may have a clue!
What reg? The only thing holding back GPL'd drivers for WiFi may be the manufacturers. The FCC won't care about device drivers. They casre about the design of the device. It would be pretty hard with software to make a WiFi card be anything but a WiFi card. Not saying it ain't possible, but highly unlikely.
That article was incredible. Those film camera's were toast. It's amazing how close this guy got to the thing. One can only imagine what happened seconds after the last frame was shot. This is a testament to the man as well as the technology. Bill Biggart, you were an incredible man. Thanks for posting that link.
Yes and they aren't droppign anything surprisingly. NOONE tops Xerox in production printing. NOONE! We have a whole campus full of Xerox tech and they have some of the best products around. I wish that they would release VIPP for other manufacturer use as well. Just finished a course on it. VIPP is basically a modified postscript, but it's much more powerful. Feed the printer a tableful of data (comma delimited) with a proper dbm file on the printer (or a jdt for line mode) and you can create letters and even graphs. Plus Xerox makes a FULL COLOR printer that prints 60 ppm! Sure, it's huge, but anything that prints that fast is. Plus the Phasers they make now can understand not just postscript but VIPP as well. There is a chance that Xerox could possibly release VIPP at some point as it's very good and based on postscript in the first place. VIPP is their most open product they have. I doubt they will release it, but printing would change if they did! They aren't so much copier heads any more. Production printing is where it's at and they can make lots of money there.
I agree. I frankly don't see what's so wrong with Disney. Sure, their shows and movies are popular. But the REALLY popular ones are popular because they are good. REAL GOOD! That's not to say that Disney has not made any stinkers....Anyone ever seen any movie with some semi famous kid star in it? They usually are not Disney's best. But the animation in their animated flicks is amazing....even today. The Lion King is still popular evenafter all of these years. It's even a musical now.
Speaking of thier other views, specifically the homosexual ones, I have never heard any stories about that. On the other hand, as much against homosexuality I am, I don't treat them any differently (unless they, you know, come on to me....). I hate what they do, not they themselves. So would I give a homosexual a job? Yes. Would I inivte them to dinner? You bet! Would I join in sin with them? No way.
IN any case, I see nothing wrong with Disney tracking their guests. Maybe they will then realize better spots to put bathrooms and stuff. All the better. Just don't track who bought them and your ok by me!
Believe in the literal translation of the beast. The one in the bible. Believe in the literal translation of the mark (666 on the forehead). Anyone who believes that a computer can be all knowing is full of himself. First, the computer would have to have enough storage not just to know what you look like, but to know you. To know your EVERY thought. To know your every memory. Consider that. Then realize how stupid it sounds in saying a computer could be made to do this. Even IBM's ESS would not have the storage capacity for ONE humans memory let alone all of the other stuff it would have to know to be all knowing. This is why I say believe in the Beast, but not as a computer, but as what the bible says the beast is. To believe anything other than this is to believe in what would really be a lesser image of the beast.
Should we fear computers and RFID tags that are setup to collect informatiion from us? Well, that depends. Personally I don't care if the computer knows that a person from my zip code bought x item. If this is the way they tracked it, it could be very useful to the marketer, but not as onerous sounding as if the tracked it specifically to you or specifically to your address.
I personally am fine with RFID use as I doubt a RFID small enough to be put on clothing would work very much beyond the distance of the store, and I also doubt that the store would leave it active after you left anyway since that would make it a bit hard of you to go back in to the store without setting off alarms! So I am not scared of RFID's.
What I don't want to see is the gunpowder in ammo be tagged. That is one of the latest things that they want to do for guns. If they did this and you accidently shot something like a endagered owl or something, they could track it at least back to the stor ethat sold the bullet and maybe back to you and charge you with something that may not be your fault! They want to do this in the name of making it easier to find murders which it would not do in the least. If this happens, the murders could switch to myskets....seriously. No, I think what is needed is fo rthe cops to patrol a bit more instead of them parking themselves at the local Tim Horton's or Dunkin Donuts!:) IE REAL POLICE WORK!
Yes this is true......unless the stripe reader has any sort of logic to it. It could encrypt the sequence and driver software could decrypt it. Then again, this points out why PHYSICAL security is as important as software/OS level security....IE you have these suckers inaccessible and keep them OFF the internet.
Yes they can. We're going to use a PC to authentica credit cards and the mag stripe reader just piggybacks onto the keyboard. There are also USB varients out there as well.