Windows XP is just fine for my needs. In fact - get ready for it- It's better than windows 7. (I won't even mention that crap Vista.. Oops I just did.) I bought a new notebook with windows 7 and I HATE IT. It's dumbed down, and bloated, and full of DRM and god knows what else. I have nothing good to say about it. I just built a rockin' new i7 Core 950, and what did I install on it? - XP and Linux. If I can't use XP anymore my upgrade path will not be to windows 7 or windows anything - anymore. I'm officially done with Microsoft. I'll be %100 pure Linux by then. I know many others who share my feelings about windows 7. I think its clear Microsoft is on a downward slide anyhow.
There are cases where it is (in windows at least) desirable to block on an application level. Say I have a program called foobar and I know it wants to phone home. So I do a little traffic snooping ( with all outbound traffic from this machine blocked) and find out where its calling to. I make an entry in my router firewall for this or thees addresses. Does that insure that it will never make the connection home?
No.
What if it tries other address in the future. What if it looks up the address via dns and foobars creators added or changed their dns entries to point to some other block of addresses my router firewall rules don't cover. Blamo! The connection is made - game over.
So as you can see, a global firewall is not sufficient in thees cases.
It's ironic since I just installed the free zone alarm and got that fake virus phishing crap the other day too. I was not fooled by it however I thought it was a cheap attempt to drum up business. So I got rid of that piece of crap and am now looking into other options. Something clean simple and designed for a computer user who does not have a single digit I.Q.
In addition I trust the Windows Firewall as about as far as I can throw an exception.
"a passion to free technology from the grip of the military-industrial complex and bring computation to the people"
And now we have to free technology from the grip of the large corporate-industrial complex and bring computation to the people.
Not much has changed.
You forgot
Secret 5: Have absolutely no respect for the customer after the sale. Send them to a support desk in India that can't speak English worth a dam.
Look out! HP and/or TI may send you a cease and desist letter for this unauthorized case mod. Your case will break when you install the next software update. When will you people learn that WE THE COMPANY still own everything you buy from us. THIS IS UNAUTHORIZED! PREPARE FOR LAW SUITS!
I used to make holograms years ago and got some good results even though my laser was weak and my table not really heavy enough. It is a somewhat expensive endeavor and AGFA stopped making plates so I got out of it. However recently I bought a "Big Ass HeNe laser" from ebay and I am now intrested in getting back into it.
Im glad to see some still do holography.
"impossible without violating the constitution" - Like the illegal government wiretapping that already happened.
And no one went to jail.
(e.g. constant monitoring).
If they can do it once - or at all, why would you think that this is something the would not do. If not now then in the future.
There are powers that can't stand the fact they not be able to watch you reading this right now.. And I fear they will get their way, someday.
My friend works for Verizon and warned me about port 4567 so I blocked it as soon as I got the service.
This is scary because they can install any software on your router at any time.. Even to monitor your traffic on you LAN side. Even though I blocked the port, after hearing this, now may get rid of the actiontech, although it is a nice router.
This is a new age. The Internet was originally based on the free flow of information for all. For better or worse (for some) it is changing the way we look at, retrieve, and digest information. The Internet is not owned by any one person or corporation or entity. There are no majority stock holders. There are no CEO"s, no board of directors, no central control, but holy shit it just works! Every morning I get up the Internet is just there buzzing away. How the hell did we do that in this money is all society? This is why the Internet scares the hell out of thees old crotchety greedy bastards like Murdoch. The Internet is a force unto its own, giving people access to instant and usually free information. (as it should be) Like a storm, this force is unrelenting and is changing the landscape of society. Now guys like Murdoch would rather stay outside and yell at the sky to stop storming instead of getting in a row boat and paddle off to safety and "go with the flow" as it were. We will see his corpse wash up soon. In fact that is what we are seeing now. This is the last death throws for Murdoch and the like (they squirm allot just before dying). So if him and others don't wake up and stop flogging us with their old business models which do not apply anymore, and get on the row boat, they will surly drown. Its pitifully obvious that they don't get it.
Learning Fortran and Basic I believe makes it harder to learn object oriented languages like C++ and Java.
I also have seen first hand what a 'real' programmer does when he sees GOTO's in code.. Remember the Excorsist? Head twisting, pea soup, the works...:)
However what is more intresting, I greped through linux kernel sources, wow- just count the GOTO'S..
I am a Computer Technician in my town and most of my customers are home pc users. One of the most popular requests I get from people is to show them how to rip cd's to the hard drive or on to a mobile MP3 device, or to make backup copies. I of course take the side of caution and tell them I can't help them with that because it's not really legal in the eyes of the music industry. The response I get is " Oh no you don't understand I bought these cd's , I own them." Then I explain to them that even if you own them you can't do it, especially by me because I have a business to run, and as much as I hate it, I have to deny helping my customers in this regard. Now these are law-abiding consumers (yes, the very same people who keep the record companies in business) - these people look at me with a blank stare, incensed at the new found knowledge that they don't own what they bought. I had one customer, after I finished a memory upgrade, pissed off at me because I would not help her back up her Elvis Presley cd's to her hard drive. She says to me "What the hell do I pay you for? I don't give a shit legal or not it my dam music". I told her she was on her own, and she abruptly ended our session. Have not heard from her since.
The moral of the story is people just don't get what all the fuss is about. They believe they own what they buy. They should. With so many other real problems out there, people can't believe certain parties take the whole situation so seriously. When I explain it to them, they are down right angry. Many vow to learn how on their own and copy up a storm. It's just not seen as being wrong in the eyes of 99% of the people. And you know what - It's not. Happy copying!
I have done some packet snooping on XP a while back (when WGA came out) and found thees blocks:
65.52.0.0/14
64.4.0.0/18
207.46.0.0/16
I block these in my linux firewall machine. Note that if you do this, it breaks automatic updates too:)
There are probably more in vista.. Snoop for yourself, let us know!
I would not know because I absolutely will never upgrade to Vista. Although I wonder how it would act if it can't phone home to mommy??
I will keep an XP box around (with no WGA), and am moving all my other windoze machines to Linux of which I have 4 already.
I can't even begin to tell you how high my blood pressure gets when I here of this kinda crap.
Just the name vista makes me want to vomit..
I remember the days when and operating systems purpose was to serve the user...
Not anymore!
In my view, no packet should leave my network without my express consent and knowledge. Any software that does otherwise is tantamount to a trojan horse or virus..
I hate to see the control of ones own computer be out of the hands of that user..
I need to go find my blood pressure monitor now.....:)
Great! Another silly law that actually does nothing but attempt to fool people that our lawmakers are actually addressing "real issues". I hate thees "protect our kiddies" - laws most of all. Isn't it the parents job to monitor and raise their kids? It certainly is not the job of the State. This is basically saying, "Parents your too stupid to know what's bet for your kids, so we are going to do it for you.."
This is such a waist of money and resources.
We should all be worried, very worried. Not from terrorists, or meth labs, but the rising level of acceptable dumbness developing in this country. I see kids (and adults) today with poor math and science skills, and unable to do critical thinking and problem solving. In fact if you are you are a child or teenager, and are good at science, you are labeled as a geek or a freak, But if you were a good pitcher on your little league team, the whole town loves you, your parents love you, your teachers love you. You are already an accepted member of society. How many inner city after school science programs are there compared to sports programs? Some parents get nervous when kids show interest in science, and even actively discourage these interests. I suspect that parents are afraid of the kid actually becoming smarter than they are:)
In Texas it is illegal to own lab glassware (test tubes, flasks, etc) without a signing a paper that basically throws away your right to privacy, and allows the law to drop by any time to see what you are up to. These insane laws make it hard on us amateur scientists - a dying breed for sure. I build a 40 watt carbon dioxide laser - it was fun, not just because it can start things on fire, but because it was a challenge. A friend of mine has a 14 year old son who I showed the laser to, I though he would show real interest. (I know I would have at his age, you couldn't tear me away.) But to my surprise he just said.. "Oh that's cool." He did not ask a single question, and when I tried to explain how it worked, I lost his attention so quickly I knew I was just wasting my breath. He wanted to go and play ball with his brother. I did chemistry when I was young and enjoyed a lot. I am now setting up my own DNA lab in my home. Computers, electronics, biology - I was, and still am fascinated by it all. I can rant on this subject forever, but I hope people wake up to science and not be so fearful and paranoid, or we will be left with such a brain drain in this country we will forget how to count to 10.
Slashdot Mirror
It must be made by Microsoft. Far too many lines of code. :)
Windows XP is just fine for my needs. In fact - get ready for it- It's better than windows 7. (I won't even mention that crap Vista.. Oops I just did.) I bought a new notebook with windows 7 and I HATE IT. It's dumbed down, and bloated, and full of DRM and god knows what else. I have nothing good to say about it. I just built a rockin' new i7 Core 950, and what did I install on it? - XP and Linux. If I can't use XP anymore my upgrade path will not be to windows 7 or windows anything - anymore. I'm officially done with Microsoft. I'll be %100 pure Linux by then. I know many others who share my feelings about windows 7. I think its clear Microsoft is on a downward slide anyhow.
All I can say is this stuff makes me smile! :) Keep up the good work Geeks and Hackers! Sock it to them!
There are cases where it is (in windows at least) desirable to block on an application level. Say I have a program called foobar and I know it wants to phone home. So I do a little traffic snooping ( with all outbound traffic from this machine blocked) and find out where its calling to. I make an entry in my router firewall for this or thees addresses. Does that insure that it will never make the connection home?
No.
What if it tries other address in the future. What if it looks up the address via dns and foobars creators added or changed their dns entries to point to some other block of addresses my router firewall rules don't cover. Blamo! The connection is made - game over.
So as you can see, a global firewall is not sufficient in thees cases.
It's ironic since I just installed the free zone alarm and got that fake virus phishing crap the other day too. I was not fooled by it however I thought it was a cheap attempt to drum up business. So I got rid of that piece of crap and am now looking into other options. Something clean simple and designed for a computer user who does not have a single digit I.Q.
In addition I trust the Windows Firewall as about as far as I can throw an exception.
"a passion to free technology from the grip of the military-industrial complex and bring computation to the people"
And now we have to free technology from the grip of the large corporate-industrial complex and bring computation to the people.
Not much has changed.
You forgot Secret 5: Have absolutely no respect for the customer after the sale. Send them to a support desk in India that can't speak English worth a dam.
Look out! HP and/or TI may send you a cease and desist letter for this unauthorized case mod. Your case will break when you install the next software update. When will you people learn that WE THE COMPANY still own everything you buy from us. THIS IS UNAUTHORIZED! PREPARE FOR LAW SUITS!
I used to make holograms years ago and got some good results even though my laser was weak and my table not really heavy enough. It is a somewhat expensive endeavor and AGFA stopped making plates so I got out of it. However recently I bought a "Big Ass HeNe laser" from ebay and I am now intrested in getting back into it. Im glad to see some still do holography.
"impossible without violating the constitution" - Like the illegal government wiretapping that already happened. And no one went to jail. (e.g. constant monitoring). If they can do it once - or at all, why would you think that this is something the would not do. If not now then in the future. There are powers that can't stand the fact they not be able to watch you reading this right now.. And I fear they will get their way, someday.
My friend works for Verizon and warned me about port 4567 so I blocked it as soon as I got the service. This is scary because they can install any software on your router at any time.. Even to monitor your traffic on you LAN side. Even though I blocked the port, after hearing this, now may get rid of the actiontech, although it is a nice router.
This is a new age. The Internet was originally based on the free flow of information for all. For better or worse (for some) it is changing the way we look at, retrieve, and digest information. The Internet is not owned by any one person or corporation or entity. There are no majority stock holders. There are no CEO"s, no board of directors, no central control, but holy shit it just works! Every morning I get up the Internet is just there buzzing away. How the hell did we do that in this money is all society? This is why the Internet scares the hell out of thees old crotchety greedy bastards like Murdoch. The Internet is a force unto its own, giving people access to instant and usually free information. (as it should be) Like a storm, this force is unrelenting and is changing the landscape of society. Now guys like Murdoch would rather stay outside and yell at the sky to stop storming instead of getting in a row boat and paddle off to safety and "go with the flow" as it were. We will see his corpse wash up soon. In fact that is what we are seeing now. This is the last death throws for Murdoch and the like (they squirm allot just before dying). So if him and others don't wake up and stop flogging us with their old business models which do not apply anymore, and get on the row boat, they will surly drown. Its pitifully obvious that they don't get it.
Learning Fortran and Basic I believe makes it harder to learn object oriented languages like C++ and Java. I also have seen first hand what a 'real' programmer does when he sees GOTO's in code.. Remember the Excorsist? Head twisting, pea soup, the works... :)
However what is more intresting, I greped through linux kernel sources, wow- just count the GOTO'S..
I am a Computer Technician in my town and most of my customers are home pc users. One of the most popular requests I get from people is to show them how to rip cd's to the hard drive or on to a mobile MP3 device, or to make backup copies. I of course take the side of caution and tell them I can't help them with that because it's not really legal in the eyes of the music industry. The response I get is " Oh no you don't understand I bought these cd's , I own them." Then I explain to them that even if you own them you can't do it, especially by me because I have a business to run, and as much as I hate it, I have to deny helping my customers in this regard. Now these are law-abiding consumers (yes, the very same people who keep the record companies in business) - these people look at me with a blank stare, incensed at the new found knowledge that they don't own what they bought. I had one customer, after I finished a memory upgrade, pissed off at me because I would not help her back up her Elvis Presley cd's to her hard drive. She says to me "What the hell do I pay you for? I don't give a shit legal or not it my dam music". I told her she was on her own, and she abruptly ended our session. Have not heard from her since. The moral of the story is people just don't get what all the fuss is about. They believe they own what they buy. They should. With so many other real problems out there, people can't believe certain parties take the whole situation so seriously. When I explain it to them, they are down right angry. Many vow to learn how on their own and copy up a storm. It's just not seen as being wrong in the eyes of 99% of the people. And you know what - It's not. Happy copying!
65.52.0.0/14
64.4.0.0/18
207.46.0.0/16
I block these in my linux firewall machine. Note that if you do this, it breaks automatic updates too:) There are probably more in vista.. Snoop for yourself, let us know! I would not know because I absolutely will never upgrade to Vista. Although I wonder how it would act if it can't phone home to mommy?? I will keep an XP box around (with no WGA), and am moving all my other windoze machines to Linux of which I have 4 already. I can't even begin to tell you how high my blood pressure gets when I here of this kinda crap. Just the name vista makes me want to vomit.. I remember the days when and operating systems purpose was to serve the user... Not anymore! In my view, no packet should leave my network without my express consent and knowledge. Any software that does otherwise is tantamount to a trojan horse or virus.. I hate to see the control of ones own computer be out of the hands of that user.. I need to go find my blood pressure monitor now.....Great! Another silly law that actually does nothing but attempt to fool people that our lawmakers are actually addressing "real issues". I hate thees "protect our kiddies" - laws most of all. Isn't it the parents job to monitor and raise their kids? It certainly is not the job of the State. This is basically saying, "Parents your too stupid to know what's bet for your kids, so we are going to do it for you.." This is such a waist of money and resources.
We should all be worried, very worried. Not from terrorists, or meth labs, but the rising level of acceptable dumbness developing in this country. I see kids (and adults) today with poor math and science skills, and unable to do critical thinking and problem solving. In fact if you are you are a child or teenager, and are good at science, you are labeled as a geek or a freak, But if you were a good pitcher on your little league team, the whole town loves you, your parents love you, your teachers love you. You are already an accepted member of society. How many inner city after school science programs are there compared to sports programs? Some parents get nervous when kids show interest in science, and even actively discourage these interests. I suspect that parents are afraid of the kid actually becoming smarter than they are :)
In Texas it is illegal to own lab glassware (test tubes, flasks, etc) without a signing a paper that basically throws away your right to privacy, and allows the law to drop by any time to see what you are up to. These insane laws make it hard on us amateur scientists - a dying breed for sure. I build a 40 watt carbon dioxide laser - it was fun, not just because it can start things on fire, but because it was a challenge. A friend of mine has a 14 year old son who I showed the laser to, I though he would show real interest. (I know I would have at his age, you couldn't tear me away.) But to my surprise he just said.. "Oh that's cool." He did not ask a single question, and when I tried to explain how it worked, I lost his attention so quickly I knew I was just wasting my breath. He wanted to go and play ball with his brother. I did chemistry when I was young and enjoyed a lot. I am now setting up my own DNA lab in my home. Computers, electronics, biology - I was, and still am fascinated by it all. I can rant on this subject forever, but I hope people wake up to science and not be so fearful and paranoid, or we will be left with such a brain drain in this country we will forget how to count to 10.
What would happen if Ballmer's kids installed the latest Fedora Core distro on their home computer? :) ?