I've said from the beginning that neither HD-DVD or BluRay would displace DVDs. I have a DVD player in each of three computers (one of which is my media center). My stepmother has a DVD player in her car so my sister can watch DVD's on long road trips. My mom has a portable DVD player she can watch on the plane (or other places she finds herself with plenty of time to watch a DVD).
BluRay may be nice for the media center, but until you can play the same discs in every other media player you own, BluRay discs aren't going to be displacing DVDs.
A scout leader of mine used to tell a story about his grandfather, who changed his last name from Fry (his birth name) to Frye (his wife's birth name) when they got married. (He may have changed from Frye to Fry, but you get the point).
A Google search for a parenthesis is your source? I've seen a lot of ad-hominem attacks on scientists who have received some funding from oil companies, but I haven't seen that any evidence was forged or that studies were inaccurate. The studies are ignored because of who funded them, not because they are actually incorrect.
XBMC + MythTV could play my NuppleVideo files, but I couldn't scan forward or back through them very reliably. This meant watching commercials, even though MythTV had already found them for me. There was also no way to mark commercials for deletion as I was watching a show, nor run jobs when playback finished.
Ultimately I spent about $150 on building a cheap PC and media case (not much more than an XBox + Mod Chip, though I used some parts I had lying around), installed Xubuntu on it, and got a better all around media center.
Why would MAC spoofing have to be common knowledge to use that as a defense for their students?
It's not like every student would have to be going around spoofing MAC addresses. You could have ten kids going around sniffing MAC addresses, then spoofing a different MAC every day to do their file sharing. You could certainly be vulnerable to this without knowing how it works.
Yeah, but if you let laws be selectively enforced, they stay on the books. Then a law that nearly everyone breaks can be used to hurt a person the enforcer just doesn't like (perhaps the offender has a politically unpopular opinion).
I've wondered about doctors and lawyers, who have federal laws that prohibit them from disclosing data about their clients. It appears that as soon as they try to cross the border with a laptop containing this information, the government only gives them the option of which law to break.
When the government puts people in a position where there is no way to avoid breaking the law, we have a serious problem.
What if you don't use your cellular service provider's voice mail service? I use Google's Grand Central for my voice mail needs. I have my cell forward people to my grand central number when I'm unable to take a call. I have Grand Central go straight to voice mail, and send me a text message when I get a message. I find this offers a number of benefits over the service offered by my cellular provider.
So if someone used this service to send a message to my voice mail, would it go through to my cell phone's voice mail, or would it use the forwarding number from my phone? If it's the former, I could end up with messages in the wrong inbox, and I'd never be aware of them.
And how many people really don't have access to at least an SP2 DVD anyway? If the average lifetime of a PC is, say, somewhere in the 3â"5 year range, then almost all PCs in use today would have come with such a disk.
Most consumer PCs these days come with a recovery partition, not an install CD. If you're reinstalling because of a hard-drive failure, and hadn't made backup CDs from the recovery partition, good luck.
I'm sure if I went around to all my friends and family I could find an SP2 disk somewhere, but I'm pretty sure the only disk I have lying around my house is from the first few weeks XP was on the market.
That said, I don't use Windows on any of my own systems anymore - the only reason I'd be looking for a CD would be for a family member. If I still had an XP system of my own, there's probably a higher chance I'd have a disk lying around.
In my experience you get the best "It Just Works" experience from hardware that has open drivers. You can generally get by with proprietary graphics or wireless drivers, but kernel updates can break everything. Open source drivers just keep going.
Remember that fiasco a month ago where a debian maintainer commented out some code in OpenSSL because it was causing compiler errors? Turns out that code was an essential part of the random number generator.
It's also plausible that a package manager could be compromised. It's unlikely with a major distributor like Canonical, Redhat, Novell, etc. but more likely if you use third party repositories.
Packages managers put one more link in the security chain. In most cases, it's probably not the weakest link, but it does add one more vector for attack.
Don't get me wrong. I use Ubuntu because of the package management. I could get slightly better performance if I compiled everything for my specific processor, and it would be a better security practice to compile my own packages, but for my personal systems the convenience of being able to say "install this package" outweighs the benefits of compiling everything myself.
I've said for a long time that Linux is great for the least technical users and the most technical users, but the more mid-range users will have problems.
In my family, my mom does just fine on Ubuntu. She checks e-mail, browses the web, writes documents, etc. Occasionally she'll say "Do you know of a program that will let me...", and I'll install it for her and show her how to use it. That's how it worked on Windows, that's how it works on Linux.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I want complete control of my system. I want to be able control exactly what services run. I want to script specific events to happen at specific times. If the mood strikes me, I want to modify a program to better suit my needs. I have the knowledge and ability to do this, and Linux fits the bill far better than Windows.
In the middle, there's my dad. He got me my first computer when I was three. He has some exclusively Windows software that he needs for work, and they won't run under Wine. He'll frequently go out and download or buy a software package and install it himself. The expectations he has of his computer were defined by Microsoft going back as far as DOS. He's a quite competent computer user, but I suspect he'd have problems adapting to the differences presented by Ubuntu.
I doubt Best Buy has an obligation to distribute the source, unless they've remixed and created their own version of Ubuntu. If they're just selling a readily available version of Ubuntu, I think the distribution obligations lie with Canonical.
For example, lots of companies that sell low-end audio recording equipment include a copy of Audacity. The companies that put audacity in a box and send it to Best Buy are bound by the GPL - that doesn't fall on Best Buy's shoulders.
Those people may also know that there are other crypto software out there that don't have the hidden volume feature, so if you are voluntarily choosing TrueCrypt, there's a significant chance that you are using the hidden volume feature.
Truecrypt is the only disk encryption software I'm aware of that can handle my disks on OSX, Windows, or Linux. That's a pretty big plus if there's any chance you'll want to access that data when your system goes down.
That said I use LUKS for my full disk, as Truecrypt doesn't offer pre-boot authentication on Linux, nor does it offer multiple keys.
I do use a separate, small Truecrypt container for my financial data. I figure if my computer gets hacked or someone gets access to the unencrypted version of the disk, I still want to keep them from that data, but I'd also like to be able to back up my data and access it from a system that may be not running Linux.
Point is, Truecrypt has it's advantages other than hidden volumes. I might be a little cautious that I'd be unable to prove I wasn't using a hidden volume, but I don't think it's a good assumption that using Truecrypt probably implies a hidden volume.
I have some friends who work for a digital forensics company (which does require a PI license). They seem to get by having supervisors with PI licenses, and the lower level employees don't have them, but still do some forensic work.
I'm guessing the Geek Squad will just need to have a PI on duty any time the kids are tinkering on other people's computers.
I use RAID and rdiff-backup in conjunction. I have a RAID device that I use for backups and a few non-essential media files. I use RAID because I want to avoid downtime or data-loss in the event of a hardware failure.
I do nightly backups from my laptop to my desktop, and backup important stuff to this device. This is primarily to combat the "Oops. Undo! Undo!" style fiasco. Every couple of weeks, I copy my backups to an external device and take them to my parent's house in case my apartment burns down or some other catastrophic failure destroys my desktop.
When we get around to it (which probably means never), my dad and I intend to set up an rdiff-backup where he'll backup to my apartment and I'll backup to his house. That way we'll be able to have our backups offsite every day, but still readily accessible (and without the fees associated with online backup services).
Perhaps. Here is hoping that they support ODF and if they need a feature added to it they go through the normal process for a revision of the standard not just break compatibility to add new features.
It's my understanding that Sun has patents that cover a lot of the OpenDocument Format. They have signed a covenant promising not to sue for use of those patents so long as they implement the specification as sun helped to outline. If Microsoft tries to extend the specification, they may find themselves subject to patent lawsuits.
I think a bigger concern might be a poor implementation of the same specification. They could easily argue that they're within the patent covenant, while giving the consumer a poor impression of ODF.
Seriously. Some people have no notion of getting the right tool for the job. A year and a half ago I bought a smallish laptop for the sole purpose of taking to class and taking notes. I had people ridiculing me for buying a 1.6 Ghz Celeron M, 512 MB of RAM, and 40 GB hard disk space, saying I should have sprung for a C2D, 2 GB of RAM and a 200 GB hard disk. I'd point out that their suggestions added about $500 to the price tag, and my laptop was already quite capable of performing the task it was intended for.
Eventually I decided to make that laptop my primary machine. I did upgrade to a C2D (for the exact same price it would have cost to have the OEM put in the same processor), added a gig of RAM for far less than it would have cost through the OEM, and pulled a 120 GB drive from a system a friend was retiring. But the point here is, it would have been silly for me to buy the latest and greatest for a system that was intended for taking notes, and upgrading after the fact wasn't any more costly than having the OEM upgrade the specs. If someone is trying to breathe life into an older system, the answer obviously shouldn't be "buy a new system."
Unfortunately, they couldn't stop if they even wanted to: they're legally obligated to try to maximize profits. If they stopped, shrugged and said 'DVR wins', their member companies' shareholders would be filing lawsuits in an instant.
Shareholders can change the board of directors in the event that the board is not maximizing profits, but they cannot sue for compensation.
Even if this were true, the company's obligation to maximize profits would be within the realm of the law. There's no way there's a law on the books that requires corporations to get laws changed to maximize their profits. They might lose their seat on the board for not lobbying congress, but it's not because they've broken any laws.
Lastly, I'm sure one could generate a study to indicate that putting fewer restrictions on their media would be a good public relations move, and would maximize profits in the long run. I don't know if that's necessarily the truth, but it could certainly be argued that it's a profit maximizing strategy.
I know WEP used to be a viable form of security, but most geeks now realize a WEP key can be broken in well under an hour.
Nonetheless, I know people who continue to use it. Typically, they have a device that can't sign in to WPA, or an access point that doesn't support it. The rationale is generally that anyone looking for a wireless network for whatever reason will pass over the WEP protected network and hop on to a neighbor's open network.
I've thought for a while that Nintendo could offer a DVD player program from the Wii Store that would cover the CSS licensing without having to associate the cost directly with the system.
The continuous access thing may be a problem though.
I have a TV with only two sets of audio/video inputs. I have a Wii, and an XBox that I use for XBMC that has a non-working DVD drive. If I could get my Wii to play DVDs, I could avoid having to climb behind my TV and move plugs around every time I want to watch a DVD.
I remember reading a while back that someone had shown that a minor hardware mod enabled them to play DVDs on the Wii (in other words, the Wii hardware is capable of playing DVDs). Any chance that the Homebrew Channel would let us build a DVD player for the Wii?
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BluRay may be nice for the media center, but until you can play the same discs in every other media player you own, BluRay discs aren't going to be displacing DVDs.
A scout leader of mine used to tell a story about his grandfather, who changed his last name from Fry (his birth name) to Frye (his wife's birth name) when they got married. (He may have changed from Frye to Fry, but you get the point).
A Google search for a parenthesis is your source? I've seen a lot of ad-hominem attacks on scientists who have received some funding from oil companies, but I haven't seen that any evidence was forged or that studies were inaccurate. The studies are ignored because of who funded them, not because they are actually incorrect.
Ultimately I spent about $150 on building a cheap PC and media case (not much more than an XBox + Mod Chip, though I used some parts I had lying around), installed Xubuntu on it, and got a better all around media center.
It's not like every student would have to be going around spoofing MAC addresses. You could have ten kids going around sniffing MAC addresses, then spoofing a different MAC every day to do their file sharing. You could certainly be vulnerable to this without knowing how it works.
Yeah, but if you let laws be selectively enforced, they stay on the books. Then a law that nearly everyone breaks can be used to hurt a person the enforcer just doesn't like (perhaps the offender has a politically unpopular opinion).
When the government puts people in a position where there is no way to avoid breaking the law, we have a serious problem.
So if someone used this service to send a message to my voice mail, would it go through to my cell phone's voice mail, or would it use the forwarding number from my phone? If it's the former, I could end up with messages in the wrong inbox, and I'd never be aware of them.
Most consumer PCs these days come with a recovery partition, not an install CD. If you're reinstalling because of a hard-drive failure, and hadn't made backup CDs from the recovery partition, good luck.
I'm sure if I went around to all my friends and family I could find an SP2 disk somewhere, but I'm pretty sure the only disk I have lying around my house is from the first few weeks XP was on the market.
That said, I don't use Windows on any of my own systems anymore - the only reason I'd be looking for a CD would be for a family member. If I still had an XP system of my own, there's probably a higher chance I'd have a disk lying around.
In my experience you get the best "It Just Works" experience from hardware that has open drivers. You can generally get by with proprietary graphics or wireless drivers, but kernel updates can break everything. Open source drivers just keep going.
It's also plausible that a package manager could be compromised. It's unlikely with a major distributor like Canonical, Redhat, Novell, etc. but more likely if you use third party repositories.
Packages managers put one more link in the security chain. In most cases, it's probably not the weakest link, but it does add one more vector for attack.
Don't get me wrong. I use Ubuntu because of the package management. I could get slightly better performance if I compiled everything for my specific processor, and it would be a better security practice to compile my own packages, but for my personal systems the convenience of being able to say "install this package" outweighs the benefits of compiling everything myself.
How do you host your own data? I use foxmarks, and was unaware of this option.
In my family, my mom does just fine on Ubuntu. She checks e-mail, browses the web, writes documents, etc. Occasionally she'll say "Do you know of a program that will let me ...", and I'll install it for her and show her how to use it. That's how it worked on Windows, that's how it works on Linux.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I want complete control of my system. I want to be able control exactly what services run. I want to script specific events to happen at specific times. If the mood strikes me, I want to modify a program to better suit my needs. I have the knowledge and ability to do this, and Linux fits the bill far better than Windows.
In the middle, there's my dad. He got me my first computer when I was three. He has some exclusively Windows software that he needs for work, and they won't run under Wine. He'll frequently go out and download or buy a software package and install it himself. The expectations he has of his computer were defined by Microsoft going back as far as DOS. He's a quite competent computer user, but I suspect he'd have problems adapting to the differences presented by Ubuntu.
For example, lots of companies that sell low-end audio recording equipment include a copy of Audacity. The companies that put audacity in a box and send it to Best Buy are bound by the GPL - that doesn't fall on Best Buy's shoulders.
Truecrypt is the only disk encryption software I'm aware of that can handle my disks on OSX, Windows, or Linux. That's a pretty big plus if there's any chance you'll want to access that data when your system goes down.
That said I use LUKS for my full disk, as Truecrypt doesn't offer pre-boot authentication on Linux, nor does it offer multiple keys.
I do use a separate, small Truecrypt container for my financial data. I figure if my computer gets hacked or someone gets access to the unencrypted version of the disk, I still want to keep them from that data, but I'd also like to be able to back up my data and access it from a system that may be not running Linux.
Point is, Truecrypt has it's advantages other than hidden volumes. I might be a little cautious that I'd be unable to prove I wasn't using a hidden volume, but I don't think it's a good assumption that using Truecrypt probably implies a hidden volume.
I'm guessing the Geek Squad will just need to have a PI on duty any time the kids are tinkering on other people's computers.
I do nightly backups from my laptop to my desktop, and backup important stuff to this device. This is primarily to combat the "Oops. Undo! Undo!" style fiasco. Every couple of weeks, I copy my backups to an external device and take them to my parent's house in case my apartment burns down or some other catastrophic failure destroys my desktop.
When we get around to it (which probably means never), my dad and I intend to set up an rdiff-backup where he'll backup to my apartment and I'll backup to his house. That way we'll be able to have our backups offsite every day, but still readily accessible (and without the fees associated with online backup services).
It's my understanding that Sun has patents that cover a lot of the OpenDocument Format. They have signed a covenant promising not to sue for use of those patents so long as they implement the specification as sun helped to outline. If Microsoft tries to extend the specification, they may find themselves subject to patent lawsuits.
I think a bigger concern might be a poor implementation of the same specification. They could easily argue that they're within the patent covenant, while giving the consumer a poor impression of ODF.
Eventually I decided to make that laptop my primary machine. I did upgrade to a C2D (for the exact same price it would have cost to have the OEM put in the same processor), added a gig of RAM for far less than it would have cost through the OEM, and pulled a 120 GB drive from a system a friend was retiring. But the point here is, it would have been silly for me to buy the latest and greatest for a system that was intended for taking notes, and upgrading after the fact wasn't any more costly than having the OEM upgrade the specs. If someone is trying to breathe life into an older system, the answer obviously shouldn't be "buy a new system."
Shareholders can change the board of directors in the event that the board is not maximizing profits, but they cannot sue for compensation.
Even if this were true, the company's obligation to maximize profits would be within the realm of the law. There's no way there's a law on the books that requires corporations to get laws changed to maximize their profits. They might lose their seat on the board for not lobbying congress, but it's not because they've broken any laws.
Lastly, I'm sure one could generate a study to indicate that putting fewer restrictions on their media would be a good public relations move, and would maximize profits in the long run. I don't know if that's necessarily the truth, but it could certainly be argued that it's a profit maximizing strategy.
Nonetheless, I know people who continue to use it. Typically, they have a device that can't sign in to WPA, or an access point that doesn't support it. The rationale is generally that anyone looking for a wireless network for whatever reason will pass over the WEP protected network and hop on to a neighbor's open network.
No, I'm simply stating why I would want to do this, which is the question the previous poster had asked.
The continuous access thing may be a problem though.
I have a TV with only two sets of audio/video inputs. I have a Wii, and an XBox that I use for XBMC that has a non-working DVD drive. If I could get my Wii to play DVDs, I could avoid having to climb behind my TV and move plugs around every time I want to watch a DVD.
I remember reading a while back that someone had shown that a minor hardware mod enabled them to play DVDs on the Wii (in other words, the Wii hardware is capable of playing DVDs). Any chance that the Homebrew Channel would let us build a DVD player for the Wii?