So while despite the prevalence of open standards in the cable industry (hello DOCSIS and QAM) and their wide support among the manufacturers of cable hardware, that it's okay for them to give me no choice but to rent hardware they approve of? That's like saying that AT&T's forced rental of phones in the past was a perfectly valid business practice. But then again, I suppose "It's telephone service, you don't have to have it."
It's *not* alright for the company to charge me to rent the hardware, and then to charge an "Access fee" that corresponds with the technology the hardware utilizes. On my bill, I pay a rental fee for my HD box, a rental fee for my SD box, and then I pay for the channels I subscribe to. But wait, since I'm an ignorant consumer and don't understand that digital capability allows you to deliver a greater number of differentiated services over the same network and with less hardware (which lowers the cable company's costs), they're going to charge me not only for those channels I subscribe to, but again based on the "class" of the service I'm getting. So I pay a "DVR" fee. And a "Digital Access" fee. And more totally and utterly made up bullshit.
Indeed. I think every modern service should remind me of the old saying, "Ma Bell's got you by the calls."
It's worse that many places frequently ask you to answer questions that may not apply to you (e.g. what is your spouse's name) or ones with changing answers (your favorite song/movie).
My uncle mentioned that he knew someone who picks a word and answers them all the same way:
What is your mother's maiden name?
blue
What was the name of the high school you graduated from?
So, I figured, just fire up remote desktop and away I go. Wrong. She is using Home Edition which as I said before doesn't have this capability.
It's worth pointing out that, even if she were running XP Pro, you would have had to log in locally to the machine to enable RDP in the first place. Granted, you can do it through Remote Registry management, but I honestly don't know if that would have been OOB enabled anyway.
If you really want to remote manage machines though, try LogMeIn. It kicks copious amounts of ass, is free, and is a turn-key solution that works with zero configuration.
Windows running for 3 months without a reboot and users think that's quality.
Sigh... I've got plenty of Windows servers in production that have yet to experience unplanned downtime since Day 1. No "scheduled reboots" or anything. I've got Windows desktops which could claim the same, but it's been a while for those because quite frankly, it's a waste of electricity to leave unused clients powered on.
I've set up Linux servers (just for personal use) which could claim the same.
My point is that uptime on a desktop generally has a hell of a lot less to do with the OS than it does the user or the hardware the OS is running on.
....so wages the everlasting Windows/Linux flame war:P
3 months uptime - that is not significant uptime at all.
I would rather argue that it is. It's one thing when you're speaking of a server -- a machine with fully redundant hardware, ECC ram, dual PSU's and so on -- that is set to run mission critical apps with a very defined purpose and static role set.
It's a totally different situation in the setting of the personal desktop. I am constantly installing new and different applications on mine, changing hardware, and occasionally I bork it with a piece of software I shouldn't have run in conjunction with another. But in that case, it doesn't really matter. My personal desktop is not mission critical, and I don't treat it as such. However, being able to claim near mission critical reliability on a personal desktop machine is impressive.
I hated all apple until I had to fix them thingamajigs.
I actually find the opposite. I like using Macs, but I don't like fixing them... it's sorta like fixing a problem on a Linux distro... Google is your [only] friend.
Windows, on the other hand, I can fix in my sleep.
but if you can't find plenty of anti-Mac/Apple hate, you must have some pretty good filters.
I find plenty of Apple/Mac hate all the time. The problem with the majority of it is that rather than actually disliking the company or the platform for a logical reason, the justification for said hate usually revolves around the assumed sexual preference of said platform's users.
The point being that most* Apple hate I encounter is based off of sheer ignorance, and not raw technical comparison.
*Generally speaking. Slashdot is a notable exception.
Word > Wordpad if you actually know how to use the application. If you can't find significant differences between the products, then you don't actually know what Word is capable of, and should probably read a book or take a training course.
IE7 has the security and reliability. It's also quicker than FF and doesn't leak memory like a sieve
In the classic battle of IE7 vs FF2, he's absolutely right.
I tried FF2 a few years ago when everyone seemed unable to get enough of the kool-aid. While superior to IE6 for its tabbed browsing, once IE7 rolled out, FF2 lost its only edge.
Today, I run FF3 with minimal addons. I don't use NoScript, because it turns normal web browsing into a circus of "allow" clicks, and makes UAC look good.
Still though, I refuse to drink either side's kool-aid. Firefox is not the shining gift from heaven some people think it is, and IE is not the complete trash slashdotters generally insist it is.
If using a different Web browser to access a server causes it to crash, you have more serious things to worry about
While you have a perfectly reasonable point, and if the user isn't supposed to use Firefox on his machine, then he shouldn't be able to get it on there in the first place... that doesn't change the fact that if a user breaks IT policy, even if it's installing software that you know and love and can find no wrong with and should be spread like love during the 60's, he should still be reprimanded, or even fired for it.
Can you fully totally completely remove Internet Explorer from, say, Windows XP?
Actually, you can. Well, at least Microsoft did. It's actually an install option on a product called Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC's, or WinFLP for short.
WinFLP is a product available to software assurance customers to bring XP compatibility to older than dirt hardware. It also allows you to netboot into an RDP client via WDS.
It's based off of XP Embedded, so yes, you can have XP without IE. However, all the stuff that relies on IE -- like Windows Update -- is a little... screwy.
But does anyone here honestly believe that only the guys that bought the product are the ones using the crack?
I chose to use cracks for software (games, really) I purchase starting with Diablo II. I always chose "full install" back in the day just so that I didn't have to put the CD in the drive to play the game... and then blizzard took that option away from me.
Then I found CloneCD and Daemon tools.
While I don't disagree with the use of it by software makers, copy protection that's a CONSTANT pain in my ass is the kind that pisses me off. Activation schemes, a-la Steam or Windows Activation, doesn't bother me as an end user at all.
I've known people who are forced to run Windows for their jobs;
If you're applying for a position in an all Microsoft shop and then bitch and moan about how you can't run Linux once you get the job, doesn't that make you a bit of a hypocrite?
Granted, I work in a mostly MS shop, and I could use Linux if I wanted to, assuming I still got my work done, but I applied here specifically because I knew my skills with Windows, and not OS X or Ubuntu, would get me the job.
With the notable exceptions of clicking "Install Now," choosing a hard disk, and entering your license key, that actually describes a standard Vista installation very well.
Also, in my experience, it's actually much less complicated than installing Ubuntu, but neither is it a stretch to say that Windows is designed for a slightly lower common denominator.
I have a motherboard from a decommissioned Diebold ATM. It's quite possibly one of my favorite acquisitions, because every time I boot up the machine, it looks like I own an ATM.
Now if only it were still full of money when I got it....
People choose Windows over OS X because they're convinced that Macintosh is an entirely different thing altogether. And this is something that Apple hasn't helped with, either.
For example, a Ford Taurus is a car. A Pontiac Grand Am is also a car. A Taurus owner has no problem driving a Grand Am at a moment's notice because he knows this, and despite the fact that it looks very different and all the trim is a different color and so on, it functions in exactly the same way as his Taurus does.
OTOH, a Dell or HP computer is a PC, and an Apple computer is a "Mac." Those (it is perceived) are totally different machines. Despite the fact that you and I both know they're built from the same chips.
For the record though, at the end of the day, I prefer Windows, even though I'm writing this from my Mac.
Yes, obsessive video hoarders will use big hard drives just as you describe. Everybody else will pay Netflix or Comcast $20 a month for hassle free access to 10,000 times the content.
I went with the hard drives. I find the seek times on Netflix to be unacceptable.
In the day of my father" *still* does not imply the millions of years that is necessary for evolution.
In the day of your father, probably not. In the day of God, our father, [who art in heaven and so on], his time, as we measure the concept (a concept to which supreme beings need not apply), began at the beginning, and ended right around 0 AD.
As a disclaimer, I'm not terribly faithful, but as a whole, I tend to find Atheists to be much more ignorant than religious types. The latter, on the other hand, does tend to be fucktons more judgmental.
Slashdot Mirror
So while despite the prevalence of open standards in the cable industry (hello DOCSIS and QAM) and their wide support among the manufacturers of cable hardware, that it's okay for them to give me no choice but to rent hardware they approve of? That's like saying that AT&T's forced rental of phones in the past was a perfectly valid business practice. But then again, I suppose "It's telephone service, you don't have to have it."
It's *not* alright for the company to charge me to rent the hardware, and then to charge an "Access fee" that corresponds with the technology the hardware utilizes. On my bill, I pay a rental fee for my HD box, a rental fee for my SD box, and then I pay for the channels I subscribe to. But wait, since I'm an ignorant consumer and don't understand that digital capability allows you to deliver a greater number of differentiated services over the same network and with less hardware (which lowers the cable company's costs), they're going to charge me not only for those channels I subscribe to, but again based on the "class" of the service I'm getting. So I pay a "DVR" fee. And a "Digital Access" fee. And more totally and utterly made up bullshit.
Indeed. I think every modern service should remind me of the old saying, "Ma Bell's got you by the calls."
My uncle mentioned that he knew someone who picks a word and answers them all the same way:
What is your mother's maiden name?
blue
What was the name of the high school you graduated from?
blue
What is your favorite color?
blue
...ad infinitum.
So, I figured, just fire up remote desktop and away I go. Wrong. She is using Home Edition which as I said before doesn't have this capability.
It's worth pointing out that, even if she were running XP Pro, you would have had to log in locally to the machine to enable RDP in the first place. Granted, you can do it through Remote Registry management, but I honestly don't know if that would have been OOB enabled anyway.
If you really want to remote manage machines though, try LogMeIn. It kicks copious amounts of ass, is free, and is a turn-key solution that works with zero configuration.
at least in firefox any non-ascii character gets screwed up.
lol, it's got to be the character, not the beautiful Firefox nor the benevolent slashcode ;)
Hehehe... I love slashdot.
I tend to crank up the brightness and contrast when encountered with games that artificially darken things.
FWIW, I tend to hit the game's options menu and adjust my display to match the mark against the grayscale gradient those games usually provide.
Just my 2 cents.
Windows running for 3 months without a reboot and users think that's quality.
Sigh... I've got plenty of Windows servers in production that have yet to experience unplanned downtime since Day 1. No "scheduled reboots" or anything. I've got Windows desktops which could claim the same, but it's been a while for those because quite frankly, it's a waste of electricity to leave unused clients powered on.
:P
I've set up Linux servers (just for personal use) which could claim the same.
My point is that uptime on a desktop generally has a hell of a lot less to do with the OS than it does the user or the hardware the OS is running on.
....so wages the everlasting Windows/Linux flame war
3 months uptime - that is not significant uptime at all.
I would rather argue that it is. It's one thing when you're speaking of a server -- a machine with fully redundant hardware, ECC ram, dual PSU's and so on -- that is set to run mission critical apps with a very defined purpose and static role set.
It's a totally different situation in the setting of the personal desktop. I am constantly installing new and different applications on mine, changing hardware, and occasionally I bork it with a piece of software I shouldn't have run in conjunction with another. But in that case, it doesn't really matter. My personal desktop is not mission critical, and I don't treat it as such. However, being able to claim near mission critical reliability on a personal desktop machine is impressive.
Where windows will give you an error code
Heh...
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
[blah blah blah]
0xA3466EBC - 0xA3466EBC, 0xA3321EBC, 0x00000142
Sometimes they're helpful ;)
Of course, that is infinitely better than "[Zomg,] We apologize, but you have to reboot your computer," in four languages.
I hated all apple until I had to fix them thingamajigs.
I actually find the opposite. I like using Macs, but I don't like fixing them... it's sorta like fixing a problem on a Linux distro... Google is your [only] friend.
Windows, on the other hand, I can fix in my sleep.
but if you can't find plenty of anti-Mac/Apple hate, you must have some pretty good filters.
I find plenty of Apple/Mac hate all the time. The problem with the majority of it is that rather than actually disliking the company or the platform for a logical reason, the justification for said hate usually revolves around the assumed sexual preference of said platform's users.
The point being that most* Apple hate I encounter is based off of sheer ignorance, and not raw technical comparison.
*Generally speaking. Slashdot is a notable exception.
Word > Wordpad if you actually know how to use the application. If you can't find significant differences between the products, then you don't actually know what Word is capable of, and should probably read a book or take a training course.
IE7 has the security and reliability. It's also quicker than FF and doesn't leak memory like a sieve
In the classic battle of IE7 vs FF2, he's absolutely right.
I tried FF2 a few years ago when everyone seemed unable to get enough of the kool-aid. While superior to IE6 for its tabbed browsing, once IE7 rolled out, FF2 lost its only edge.
Today, I run FF3 with minimal addons. I don't use NoScript, because it turns normal web browsing into a circus of "allow" clicks, and makes UAC look good.
Still though, I refuse to drink either side's kool-aid. Firefox is not the shining gift from heaven some people think it is, and IE is not the complete trash slashdotters generally insist it is.
There was an old woman who swallowed a horse.
She died, of course.
If using a different Web browser to access a server causes it to crash, you have more serious things to worry about
While you have a perfectly reasonable point, and if the user isn't supposed to use Firefox on his machine, then he shouldn't be able to get it on there in the first place... that doesn't change the fact that if a user breaks IT policy, even if it's installing software that you know and love and can find no wrong with and should be spread like love during the 60's, he should still be reprimanded, or even fired for it.
Can you fully totally completely remove Internet Explorer from, say, Windows XP?
Actually, you can. Well, at least Microsoft did. It's actually an install option on a product called Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC's, or WinFLP for short.
WinFLP is a product available to software assurance customers to bring XP compatibility to older than dirt hardware. It also allows you to netboot into an RDP client via WDS.
It's based off of XP Embedded, so yes, you can have XP without IE. However, all the stuff that relies on IE -- like Windows Update -- is a little... screwy.
But does anyone here honestly believe that only the guys that bought the product are the ones using the crack?
I chose to use cracks for software (games, really) I purchase starting with Diablo II. I always chose "full install" back in the day just so that I didn't have to put the CD in the drive to play the game... and then blizzard took that option away from me.
Then I found CloneCD and Daemon tools.
While I don't disagree with the use of it by software makers, copy protection that's a CONSTANT pain in my ass is the kind that pisses me off. Activation schemes, a-la Steam or Windows Activation, doesn't bother me as an end user at all.
I've known people who are forced to run Windows for their jobs;
If you're applying for a position in an all Microsoft shop and then bitch and moan about how you can't run Linux once you get the job, doesn't that make you a bit of a hypocrite?
Granted, I work in a mostly MS shop, and I could use Linux if I wanted to, assuming I still got my work done, but I applied here specifically because I knew my skills with Windows, and not OS X or Ubuntu, would get me the job.
"pop it the disk and let it install"
With the notable exceptions of clicking "Install Now," choosing a hard disk, and entering your license key, that actually describes a standard Vista installation very well.
Also, in my experience, it's actually much less complicated than installing Ubuntu, but neither is it a stretch to say that Windows is designed for a slightly lower common denominator.
I have a motherboard from a decommissioned Diebold ATM. It's quite possibly one of my favorite acquisitions, because every time I boot up the machine, it looks like I own an ATM.
Now if only it were still full of money when I got it....
People choose Windows over OS X because they're convinced that Macintosh is an entirely different thing altogether. And this is something that Apple hasn't helped with, either.
For example, a Ford Taurus is a car. A Pontiac Grand Am is also a car. A Taurus owner has no problem driving a Grand Am at a moment's notice because he knows this, and despite the fact that it looks very different and all the trim is a different color and so on, it functions in exactly the same way as his Taurus does.
OTOH, a Dell or HP computer is a PC, and an Apple computer is a "Mac." Those (it is perceived) are totally different machines. Despite the fact that you and I both know they're built from the same chips.
For the record though, at the end of the day, I prefer Windows, even though I'm writing this from my Mac.
It improves greatly if you implement caching.
To the aforementioned RAID array ;)
Yes, obsessive video hoarders will use big hard drives just as you describe. Everybody else will pay Netflix or Comcast $20 a month for hassle free access to 10,000 times the content.
I went with the hard drives. I find the seek times on Netflix to be unacceptable.
In the day of my father" *still* does not imply the millions of years that is necessary for evolution.
In the day of your father, probably not. In the day of God, our father, [who art in heaven and so on], his time, as we measure the concept (a concept to which supreme beings need not apply), began at the beginning, and ended right around 0 AD.
Now, it is the time of the Son.
As a disclaimer, I'm not terribly faithful, but as a whole, I tend to find Atheists to be much more ignorant than religious types. The latter, on the other hand, does tend to be fucktons more judgmental.
But that won't stop them from trying... Until they run out of cake, that is.
Did not happen to USENET back in the day and won't happen now.
When I read Usenet I think of storage capacity rather than bandwidth. Did you mean UUCP or some such?