It'll probably remain weak as long as the OS X install base remains small.
If and when a large OS X monoculture develops, then viruses and malware will begin to appear.
Meanwhile, members of a subculture can crow about 'inherently superior security models.' Like boys in a tree fort do after they've pulled up the rope ladder.
The only scenario in which this won't be the case is one where the user has no writable access to anything on his/her computer that he considers important.
Never mind. I dug around and found the converter here. So I've sicced wget on download.microsoft.com and hopefully the big 27M package will eventually arrive.
Looks like I can even use it on my W2K box which sports the 'net install' Windows 2000 SP4 and the 'update rollup for W2K SP4' (net install version.) Maybe I won't have to connect to the 'mother ship' at all.
Thanks for your patience in straigtening me out. Hope it works (and also that the non-'beta' version of the converter is as easy and freely distributed)
Microsoft has addressed the issue of older versions of office being able to open the new formats with a free update. People who are using it now will not be forced to upgrade to read/write the new formats. Here is a source:
That isn't a 'source.' It's a blurb that mentions: Compatibility. By installing a simple update, users of Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft Office XP, and Office 2003 Editions can open, edit, and save documents in one of the Office XML Formats.
No link is provided to said 'simple update' and one can presume that it may be a typical 'promise' from Microsoft, which may or may not ever be delivered.
You're welcomed to provide a link where said 'simple update' can be downloaded from. (ask your buddy down the hall in whichever building on the Microsoft campus you work in)
Preferably it will be one that is a 'net install' update, i.e. where you can download and transport the installer to any machine you want, one you don't have to 'connect to the mothership, exposing each machine you want to install it on to Microsoft's servers. I, for example, use one of the first versions of Office 2000 from just before they started their 'software validation' scheme. It has NEVER been 'validated' to Microsoft. It was a retail box purchase I can install on any single machine I choose to, and Microsoft has no business whatsoever having ANY access to the machine I have it installed on.
And NetBSD created pkgsrc, which is now quite cross-platform ported out all over the place. To Solaris, Linux, Darwin, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, Irix, AIX, Interix, DragonflyBSD, and OS/F. It's one heck of a nice arrangement if you run any/all of the above. Mirror one source repository (distfiles) locally and build packages on all your various boxes from one common build tree (which is CVS updatable.)
Yes. I was suggesting (but got detracted a little in my comment) a no-route-out type of solution. Putting the machines on a private subnet with one machine providing a sort of cache-point as the only pathway out to the world (if updates or such are needed on the unsecured 3-D capable machines, it's stuck on this machine which the 3D boxes have access to over an entirely separate ethernet.) No 'web' access on the machines proper in the lab, etc. If people need a way to access the Web and Internet from within the lab, stick another box beside the one with the 3D capable display. If that 'seat' needs web access, stick the 'outside world' box on a two way KVM with the 3D-capable box.
I can't see any other way of continuing to use the NVIDIA binary-blob security risk on machines if there is any chance of remaining secure.
You feel strongly against a new file format you didnt even know existed?
I feel strongly against Microsoft breaking compatability with each and every single version of Office. They can claim that the new 'format' for Office 200x (there will be a 2008 and 2008 if MS marketing decides it's necesary) is 'open' but if Office 2000 and 97 and XP won't open files it saves in said format, voila! they've forced the entire install base at a company to upgrade their Office as soon as a PHB sees the 'oooh! shiney!' new bling-bling in Office 200x and sends a few memos (as a Word Attachment, the sign of a true PHB!) in the 'new format.'
I mean, we all know that 'Open' ultimately means some uncrackable obfuscated wrench in the works that will only be revealed to 'competitors' under NDA. Microsoft doesn't work any other way!
I would agree with you if all the PDF files I need to view would load with an older version of Acrobat. Graceful backwards compatability, baybee. Otherwise, for the general user, 'PDF' means loading up that big old battleaxe Acrobat Reader. I much prefer Foxit Reader on Windows and use xpdf on NetBSD.
And PDF is probably what we'll all end up holding onto when whatever sort of monster Microsoft turns the new 'Standard' into mandates Windows or Microsoft binaries (you know it will eventually, somehow, or Microsoft wouldn't be pushing it)
No, you don't get what I am saying because you're so enamored with the new 'Office 2007' that you haven't noticed that Microsoft often, regularly, offers 'the latest upgrade version' as a panacea that will 'Solve All Problems (tm)' that existed in the old version. They do this over and over and over. It's good marketing I suppose.
Okay. You apparently hover over the MSDN forums and are keen on the wunnerful new features in Office. Here's your cookie, chimp.
a class action suit against Nvidia for r00ting a phalanx of machines...
Do you realize what effect such a class action suit would have on companies leaning toward, or currently involved in supporting Linux drivers for their hardware?
Hint: they wouldn't respond by uploading source tarballs to ftp.gnu.org/incoming/.
If Intel graphics becomes available on a card I can plug into my AMD-based machine (vs being built into the system board, and no way in hell is an Intel board going to support AMD processors)...
Maybe AMD's purchase of ATI will lead to a change in ATI's attitude.
Another possibility for the future is: 'no way in hell will ATI boards support Intel processors.'
Do the machines you do this 'visualizing 3D fluid simulations' work on need to be live on a public network? Could they be safely subnetted on your lab network with a secure 'gateway machine' (two NICs in it) protecting them? Then this Root Exploit is irrelevant. You should have the machines in your lab secured to such a degree already in the first place.
One of the plastic totes that's in the way when I try to get to my testbench (testbench! pfaw! it's a bloody STORAGE AREA right now!) is full of those sorts of cards. Less than $40? I'd part with four of them for $40.
The more important question is wether some cracker will be able to throw Raedon-esque 3D graphics onto your display from somewhere in an Internet cafe in Malaysia.
A "Killer Application" is so great that people will go out and buy hardware just to use it. Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect caused lots of people to buy IBM PCs back in the day.
To extend the historical reference back one generation, one of the first 'Personal Computer' killer apps was VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, which was produced only for the Apple 2 computer for aprox. the first year that the program existed. People are always exclaiming about the 'technical wizardry' of Steve & Steve in coming out with the Apple 2, when the historical fact is that the Apple II's early penetration in the business market (and the reason Apple survived long enough to become established, survive disasters like the Apple 3, etc.) is that Businessmen would go into early Personal Computer shops saying 'I need a VisiCalc' and meaning they needed an Apple II computer and the VisiCalc program to run on it.
The 'killer app' VisiCalc is actually the main reason Apple Computer grew and survived those early days, to later become the 'Macintosh' company.
Actually, the 'point people dislike' about MS Office XML is right there in front of your face, in the text of what you yourself typed. The 'we are talking about the new format supported by office 2007' sticks out like an ugly wart on your face.
Why is there a new version? Why is somebody like you trying to 'excuse' problems with the 'old version' by bringing up that there's a new version? Personally, I wasn't even aware there was now a new 'Office 2007' out with new 'better, improved, the-problems-are-all-gone' file formats. It was to be expected, I suppose.
If you don't get what I am saying, you're beyond hope. Flash your plastic at a Microsoft reseller to cope with the world, I suppose.
(I'm posting this with a rare gesture of unchecking the 'no karma bonus' in the entry form, because I feel strong enough about this to post it at +2)
Actually, a lot of people use PDF files as bitmap containers. Specifically, that is ALL they are using PDF for.
Look at any 'Old Technical Document Repository' webite, i.e. The Boat-Anchor Manual Archive. Tons and tons of old equipment manual pages scanned as bitmaps, with many 'contained' in big fat ugly PDF files. It isn't the best 'container' people could use, but it's become a defacto standard for a lot of people.
What I have noticed is that PDF has bloated out into being a fat ungainly pig. Well, mostly I refer to Adobe's 'Acrobat' platform, which is their "extend" (they already embraced PDF) of the file format into a 'platform' with the thick layers of bullshit that now load up when you run Acrobat Reader.
Being as I am a paid licensee (a software copy 'owner' in the old view of software) of Acrobat 4.0 and still use it sometimes when tweaking and editing PDFs on Windows, I know what Acrobat once was. It was fairly managable, and there have evolved enough 'free' tools to create and manipulate it that Adobe probably has felt the need to twist it to be a bit more proprietary with each new version of their 'Suite' of PDF manipulation tools. (they used to have plain Acrobat and that was that. Now it's a tiered suite of tools with different 'powers' depending on how much $$ you want to pay Acrobat for holding your content ransom.)
It seems to me like XPF will sting Apple in the butt, too, if it becomes dominant. Isn't there a thick powerful layer of 'display postscript' built into the newer versions of NextStep that have been rebranded MacOS X? If PDF and Postscript become also-rans, doesn't that run Apple's technology out onto a dead-end branch?
(I don't think it will happen, myself. Postscript is too strong and with too rich a heritage. But Microsoft can be a brutal and blunt opponent of good things it doesn't own.)
'Carrot and stick' used to refer to putting a carrot on a stick and dangling it in front of the mule to get it to move forward.
Somehow it got distorted to mean 'given a carrot' or 'hit with the stick.' Which is a sad twist of the phrase toward a more cruel meaning.
Knowing this has ruined it for me when people use the 'carrot and stick' phrase in the newer context. It shows up whomever uses the phrase as being somewhat crude and blunt.
ex-convicts are far more likely to be involved in criminal activities including homicide.
What you say there is true, and it doesn't even need to be shown to be a cause-effect relationship. People who are ex-convicts are people who were caught in criminal activites. So they are naturally the sort of people more likely to continue to commit crimes than the public as a whole.
There's no need to get all sociological about it, which some are prone to do.
Slashdot Mirror
It is rather weak, but out there.
It'll probably remain weak as long as the OS X install base remains small.
If and when a large OS X monoculture develops, then viruses and malware will begin to appear.
Meanwhile, members of a subculture can crow about 'inherently superior security models.' Like boys in a tree fort do after they've pulled up the rope ladder.
The only scenario in which this won't be the case is one where the user has no writable access to anything on his/her computer that he considers important.
Never mind. I dug around and found the converter here. So I've sicced wget on download.microsoft.com and hopefully the big 27M package will eventually arrive.
Looks like I can even use it on my W2K box which sports the 'net install' Windows 2000 SP4 and the 'update rollup for W2K SP4' (net install version.) Maybe I won't have to connect to the 'mother ship' at all.
Thanks for your patience in straigtening me out. Hope it works (and also that the non-'beta' version of the converter is as easy and freely distributed)
That isn't a 'source.' It's a blurb that mentions: Compatibility. By installing a simple update, users of Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft Office XP, and Office 2003 Editions can open, edit, and save documents in one of the Office XML Formats.
No link is provided to said 'simple update' and one can presume that it may be a typical 'promise' from Microsoft, which may or may not ever be delivered.
You're welcomed to provide a link where said 'simple update' can be downloaded from. (ask your buddy down the hall in whichever building on the Microsoft campus you work in)
Preferably it will be one that is a 'net install' update, i.e. where you can download and transport the installer to any machine you want, one you don't have to 'connect to the mothership, exposing each machine you want to install it on to Microsoft's servers. I, for example, use one of the first versions of Office 2000 from just before they started their 'software validation' scheme. It has NEVER been 'validated' to Microsoft. It was a retail box purchase I can install on any single machine I choose to, and Microsoft has no business whatsoever having ANY access to the machine I have it installed on.
Also, it's FreeBSD ports. Not 'BSD Ports.' You have to look elsewhere if you want a general BSD package system.
( hint)
And NetBSD created pkgsrc, which is now quite cross-platform ported out all over the place. To Solaris, Linux, Darwin, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, Irix, AIX, Interix, DragonflyBSD, and OS/F. It's one heck of a nice arrangement if you run any/all of the above. Mirror one source repository (distfiles) locally and build packages on all your various boxes from one common build tree (which is CVS updatable.)
No. Actually, Google has been acting rather pink lately.
Yes. I was suggesting (but got detracted a little in my comment) a no-route-out type of solution. Putting the machines on a private subnet with one machine providing a sort of cache-point as the only pathway out to the world (if updates or such are needed on the unsecured 3-D capable machines, it's stuck on this machine which the 3D boxes have access to over an entirely separate ethernet.) No 'web' access on the machines proper in the lab, etc. If people need a way to access the Web and Internet from within the lab, stick another box beside the one with the 3D capable display. If that 'seat' needs web access, stick the 'outside world' box on a two way KVM with the 3D-capable box.
I can't see any other way of continuing to use the NVIDIA binary-blob security risk on machines if there is any chance of remaining secure.
You feel strongly against a new file format you didnt even know existed?
I feel strongly against Microsoft breaking compatability with each and every single version of Office. They can claim that the new 'format' for Office 200x (there will be a 2008 and 2008 if MS marketing decides it's necesary) is 'open' but if Office 2000 and 97 and XP won't open files it saves in said format, voila! they've forced the entire install base at a company to upgrade their Office as soon as a PHB sees the 'oooh! shiney!' new bling-bling in Office 200x and sends a few memos (as a Word Attachment, the sign of a true PHB!) in the 'new format.'
I mean, we all know that 'Open' ultimately means some uncrackable obfuscated wrench in the works that will only be revealed to 'competitors' under NDA. Microsoft doesn't work any other way!
I would agree with you if all the PDF files I need to view would load with an older version of Acrobat. Graceful backwards compatability, baybee. Otherwise, for the general user, 'PDF' means loading up that big old battleaxe Acrobat Reader. I much prefer Foxit Reader on Windows and use xpdf on NetBSD.
And PDF is probably what we'll all end up holding onto when whatever sort of monster Microsoft turns the new 'Standard' into mandates Windows or Microsoft binaries (you know it will eventually, somehow, or Microsoft wouldn't be pushing it)
No, you don't get what I am saying because you're so enamored with the new 'Office 2007' that you haven't noticed that Microsoft often, regularly, offers 'the latest upgrade version' as a panacea that will 'Solve All Problems (tm)' that existed in the old version. They do this over and over and over. It's good marketing I suppose.
Okay. You apparently hover over the MSDN forums and are keen on the wunnerful new features in Office. Here's your cookie, chimp.
a class action suit against Nvidia for r00ting a phalanx of machines...
Do you realize what effect such a class action suit would have on companies leaning toward, or currently involved in supporting Linux drivers for their hardware?
Hint: they wouldn't respond by uploading source tarballs to ftp.gnu.org/incoming/.
Another possibility for the future is: 'no way in hell will ATI boards support Intel processors.'
Do the machines you do this 'visualizing 3D fluid simulations' work on need to be live on a public network? Could they be safely subnetted on your lab network with a secure 'gateway machine' (two NICs in it) protecting them? Then this Root Exploit is irrelevant. You should have the machines in your lab secured to such a degree already in the first place.
One of the plastic totes that's in the way when I try to get to my testbench (testbench! pfaw! it's a bloody STORAGE AREA right now!) is full of those sorts of cards. Less than $40? I'd part with four of them for $40.
The more important question is wether some cracker will be able to throw Raedon-esque 3D graphics onto your display from somewhere in an Internet cafe in Malaysia.
But you won't understand. Carry on.
To extend the historical reference back one generation, one of the first 'Personal Computer' killer apps was VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, which was produced only for the Apple 2 computer for aprox. the first year that the program existed. People are always exclaiming about the 'technical wizardry' of Steve & Steve in coming out with the Apple 2, when the historical fact is that the Apple II's early penetration in the business market (and the reason Apple survived long enough to become established, survive disasters like the Apple 3, etc.) is that Businessmen would go into early Personal Computer shops saying 'I need a VisiCalc' and meaning they needed an Apple II computer and the VisiCalc program to run on it.
The 'killer app' VisiCalc is actually the main reason Apple Computer grew and survived those early days, to later become the 'Macintosh' company.
Actually, the 'point people dislike' about MS Office XML is right there in front of your face, in the text of what you yourself typed. The 'we are talking about the new format supported by office 2007' sticks out like an ugly wart on your face.
Why is there a new version? Why is somebody like you trying to 'excuse' problems with the 'old version' by bringing up that there's a new version? Personally, I wasn't even aware there was now a new 'Office 2007' out with new 'better, improved, the-problems-are-all-gone' file formats. It was to be expected, I suppose.
If you don't get what I am saying, you're beyond hope. Flash your plastic at a Microsoft reseller to cope with the world, I suppose.
(I'm posting this with a rare gesture of unchecking the 'no karma bonus' in the entry form, because I feel strong enough about this to post it at +2)
Actually, a lot of people use PDF files as bitmap containers. Specifically, that is ALL they are using PDF for.
Look at any 'Old Technical Document Repository' webite, i.e. The Boat-Anchor Manual Archive. Tons and tons of old equipment manual pages scanned as bitmaps, with many 'contained' in big fat ugly PDF files. It isn't the best 'container' people could use, but it's become a defacto standard for a lot of people.
PDF has settled down a lot lately.
What I have noticed is that PDF has bloated out into being a fat ungainly pig. Well, mostly I refer to Adobe's 'Acrobat' platform, which is their "extend" (they already embraced PDF) of the file format into a 'platform' with the thick layers of bullshit that now load up when you run Acrobat Reader.
Being as I am a paid licensee (a software copy 'owner' in the old view of software) of Acrobat 4.0 and still use it sometimes when tweaking and editing PDFs on Windows, I know what Acrobat once was. It was fairly managable, and there have evolved enough 'free' tools to create and manipulate it that Adobe probably has felt the need to twist it to be a bit more proprietary with each new version of their 'Suite' of PDF manipulation tools. (they used to have plain Acrobat and that was that. Now it's a tiered suite of tools with different 'powers' depending on how much $$ you want to pay Acrobat for holding your content ransom.)
It seems to me like XPF will sting Apple in the butt, too, if it becomes dominant. Isn't there a thick powerful layer of 'display postscript' built into the newer versions of NextStep that have been rebranded MacOS X? If PDF and Postscript become also-rans, doesn't that run Apple's technology out onto a dead-end branch?
(I don't think it will happen, myself. Postscript is too strong and with too rich a heritage. But Microsoft can be a brutal and blunt opponent of good things it doesn't own.)
Another example:
'Carrot and stick' used to refer to putting a carrot on a stick and dangling it in front of the mule to get it to move forward.
Somehow it got distorted to mean 'given a carrot' or 'hit with the stick.' Which is a sad twist of the phrase toward a more cruel meaning.
Knowing this has ruined it for me when people use the 'carrot and stick' phrase in the newer context. It shows up whomever uses the phrase as being somewhat crude and blunt.
What you say there is true, and it doesn't even need to be shown to be a cause-effect relationship. People who are ex-convicts are people who were caught in criminal activites. So they are naturally the sort of people more likely to continue to commit crimes than the public as a whole.
There's no need to get all sociological about it, which some are prone to do.
sure high risk for going back, but to prison that time.
So you're huffing and strutting and posturing about, like you're an expert on the subject, and it sounds like all you've been in is jail. Huh.
There are way more than 23 Mac owners who choose not to install Windows on their PC.
You blew it with the all-caps use of 'INSANELY' there. You're either an Apple marketing flack or (frighteningly) one of their victims.
Or Steve, and I don't mean the Woz.