The copyright holder (of any kind of work, not just software) is given exclusive rights to license that work for others to use, under the terms of their choice.
I'm afraid that's incorrect. Copyright law has nothing to do with licenses for use. Copyright, as the name helpfully implies, involves the right to make copies. The copyright holder is the entity with, as you put it, exclusive rights to license that work for others to copy, ender their terms of choice. For example, the copyright license on OS X (as a whole) boils down to "you may not make copies of this software" i.e. you (as somebody other than the copyright holder) have no rights to make copies.
This is the problem that Pystar ran into - they were bundling (modified) copies of OS X (pre-installed on their systems), which they didn't have a license to distribute. The whole thing about Apple's "only use this software on Apple-branded equipment" was irrelevant to the court's final decision, since it was a copyright case and copyright law doesn't apply to usage.
Wow, I'm sorry, but you completely invalidated your entire post right here:
If you think "well, the licence should be ignored" then sure, as long as the GPL can also be ignored at will, or any other software licence for that matter.
The GPL is not a software license, although it is typically used with software. It most certainly is not an End User License Agreement. You don't have to accept it in order to purchase/receive/download the software. You quite explicitly don't have to accept it in order to use the software.
In fact, you never "accept" the GPL at all, except implicitly when distributing copies (or derived works). It is simply a license to distribute copies of the software (with or without modifications). That's *all* that copyright licenses are: the terms under which you can distribute (possibly modified) copies of something. The GPL's essential terms are thus: you must make the source code available, and you must use the GPL as the copyright license of the copies you distribute. If you want to distribute the software without comitting copyright infringement, you need to adhere to those terms.
EULAs are completely different, and have nothing inherently to do with copyright at all. EULAs start with the assumption that software is licensed - that is, you don't actually own it - and uses that position to claim that you must abide by their "license to use the software" A.K.A. the software's EULA. If you reject the agreement, then your license to use the software is revoked and you are entitled to a refund. If you violate the agreement - that is, agree, then break the terms - then your license to use the software is revoked and you are not entitled to a refund. If you use the software without a license (either due to rejecting the license, or breaking its terms) then you'll putting yourself at risk of a lawsuit for unlicensed use of a licensed product. As for whether the restrictions in the license are even enforcable... well, the lawyers haven't all decided yet.
Note that none of the above paragraph involves copyright in any way. For example, copyright law provides codified legal recourse in the case of copyright infringement, but no such law exists for violation of EULAs. Note also that the EULA, being a *User* license agreement, is irrelevant to somebody who just wants to make copies of the software and distribute them to people. This is where copyright licenses, which are completely distinct from EULAs, come into play.
The copyright license on commercial software is almost always the default one: you're not permitted to make copies at all except for the Fair Use provisions in copyright law. Sometimes you'll find software with both types of license, such as shareware with a EULA stating that you're not permitted to use the software if you attempt to reverse-engineer it, and a copyright license saying you're allowed to distribute copies of the software provided they're completely unmodified. The vast majority of open-source software does not have a EULA.
I'd say you must be new here - this is explained frequently - but your UID argues against that. Seriously, though, if you can't distinguish between a copyright agreement and a user agreement, you have no business in this discussion and your posts herein should be moderated accordingly.
Actually, I kind of prefer Microsoft's approach here (vs. Adobe's). There is a reason that Moonlight is much closer to Silverlight than Gnash is to Flash, despite the latter project having a lot of momentum. Basically, the specifications for creating a Silverlight runtime are freely available. Flash's specs prohibit usage for that reason, forcing developers of an open-source runtime to rely on clean-room reverse engineering. Sure, Adobe provides a native Flash player - in binary format only, for some processors. Moonlight, like Mono from which it is derived, is open source and portable (though not all codecs for it are available open-source).
As for future maintenance, that's just plain silly. Adobe could announce tomorrow that they're not distributing Flash for Linux anymore, and send DMCA takedown notices to anybody still hosting it. They control it entirely. By comparison, anybody can pick up and continue the Moonlight codebase, without Microsoft having anything to do with it.
While most fighters can fly fairly effectively straight up, it's a real strain on the pilots, and the plane is a lot less maneuverable. Coming down from above is certainly possible but only works within a small range - there's an altitude ceiling that defines the highest point you can start from, and there's the ground. At the speeds a fighter flies, especially in a dive, there isn't a lot of room in between. Finally, while you might actually make contact with enemy planes from below or above or something, they had to take off from somewhere and that somewhere is most likely over the horizon. Thus, no matter what altitude they're flying at, the first time you "see" the enemy (you probably don't actually see them, might not even detect them on radar initially) they are approaching your latitude/longitude, meaning maneuvering in north/south and east/west directions.
Deep space is very different. There's no ceiling, and no ground (unless you're in orbit). It's just as efficient to fly in any direction, and no harder on the pilot. There's no horizon either - your detection range is spherical, rather than being essentially a cylinder centered on your location. If you're using radar to scan, you have to do so in three dimensions - the beam doesn't spread out enough to encompass the full area that the enemy could be in.
Hahahahaha wow that's a lot of bullshit in one place. You really should do some research.
Office (or at least the Office applications) have been developed for Apple platforms since before Windows existed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word#History). The release schedule hasn't shown major changes over the decades. I'm having a hard time even taking the rest of your statement seriously considering how incredibly wrong your first sentence is.
While it is true that Microsoft discontinued IE for Mac, they did so only after Apple provided their own, better-integrated browser. If Apple produces and integrates their own Silverlight runtime (which they coudl do, using the Moonlight codebase) I'm sure Microsoft will happily stop spending development resources on providing their own implementation. Until then, not a chance - if MS wants to see Silverlight succeed, they need to be able to compete with Flash in marketshare. Since Flash is installed on something like 97% of computers, and Apple has roughly 10% marketshare, you can bet Silverlight for Mac isn't going away soon.
Microsoft has also historically released software for Linux, Solaris, and other POSIX-based systems. This even extends to GPL kernel modules for Linux. They also provide the codecs needed to use Silverlight (via Moonlight, a project that they have supported the development of) on Linux or other similar systems.
The driver binaries are identical. Absolutely identical; not even the slightest differences. Run a binary comparator over an "official" driver and one from laptopvideo2go (or similar) of the same version number if you don't believe me. In fact, nVidia themselves finally admitted this (after a fashion) when they started including support for laptop cards in their official INF files.
Finally, your point still fails. It was one of nVidia's official drivers, from their website, using the official INF (as I said, they've started including support for the laptop cards), that broke Hibernate functionality. While it would be nice if the computer manufacturers could somehow fix the broken drivers and provide those fixes, the problem still rests squarely with nVidia and their buggy software.
Considering how many small software companies there are who largely survive by contracting for giants (MS prominently among them) I don't really envision MS having any good reason to use this contractor again. There's an awful lot more options out there that haven't publicly embarrassed MS (and cost them a lot of money, no doubt). If anything, I'd expect MS to use this vendor as an object lesson in what happens if you don't follow the terms of the contract (MS has very strict policies regarding open-source code use).
It's not the copyright infringement - it's the embarrassment of a major foreign business. I don't expect the contractor(s) to be shot for it, but that doesn't mean they'll walk away easy. The US is highly dependent on Chinese trade, but that doesn't mean the Chinese aren't dependent on us too. Anything that sends a signal to foreign companies against investing in China is going to be severely frowned upon.
While I don't know how this extends to contractors, internally Microsoft has extremely strict regulations about use of open-source (even if not GPL or other copyleft) code. If it were somebody internal to the company, they'd probably be looking for a new job right now.
For a contractor, breach of contract conditions at the very least, and its unlikely they'll get any more MS contracts in the future. This sucks for them - there are a lot of small companies that make much if not all of their income doing contract jobs specifically for MS - but from Microsoft's perspective, those guys are now an object lesson to all the other small software shops out there, of which there's really no lack.
I still have to take issue with your $600 "for HD TV" though. First, there's absolutely no reason to buy a TV - all the better flatscreen computer monitors have HDMI (or DVI, a simply adapter from HDMI) and if necessary you can get an adapter to output VGA from the Xbox 360 (though at that point the money is probably better spent on a high-quality display). Such a monitor, capable of at least 1920x1080 (1080p, i.e. full HD) will cost well under $300 for 32" if you take the time to shop around a bit (I've seen as low as $240). If you need bigger they're available, although selection decreases. You either need one with speakers or a decent set of external speakers, either of which will add no more than $50 to the price tag. Throw in $6 for a HDMI cable + shipping (they're vastly cheaper online than the hideously overpriced Monster cables you find at electronics stores) and you're talking at worst about $400.
If you're going to use it the same way you do PC gaming - that is, primarily single-player or online - you can get a nice 24" display (with 1080p and HDMI) for under $200. In fact, you may not even need another display - just use the one connected to your PC. It's not like you'll be using the PC at the same time, and you presumably already have a good monitor and adequate audio setup. For that matter, it's probable that such a system will be adequate for 2 people (you mentioned buying only one additional controller) provided the space its in has room for a second chair.
Out of curiosity, exactly what Nokia device is Apple (or allthingsd.com) claiming to be a copy of the iPhone? Nokia has had touchscreen-based (though not multi-touch) devices, both with and without phone chips, since before the existence of the iPhone, and while most if not all such devices could play music, none of them (in my experience) could be said to have copied the iPhone's or iPod's user interface. Many of these devices have also had installable applications available, though again I don't know of any that use the iPhone's App Store model.
If there's a Nokia device out there that is a copy of the iPhone's "design and user interface", I'd love to see it. The closest thing that comes to mind is the N900, which runs Maemo Linux, and bears considerably little superficial resemblance to the iPhone.
While I haven't used UNetBootin, the method you describe does in fact work quite well for making Windows install/recovery partitions (and might work for Linux with some tweaking).
Use diskpart.exe to format the flashdrive, and mark the partition as active (if you want to, you can use multiple partitions, though generally that's not neccessary). Then, either mount the ISO, burn it and read the disk, or extract its contents (I use 7zip to extract; it's very easy to use). Copy the contents to the flashdrive - you'll see instructions online to use xcopy or robocopy, but honestly just using Windows Explorer works fine.
Congratulations, you now have a bootable flashdrive. I've not tried to get a Linux bootloader working, but it works flawlessly for Windows.
Indeed. In fact, since things like rm (or for that matter, glibc) are open-source, it's a lot easier for an attacker to develop a modified version that simply can't see the malware, or fails with a "file not found" (or does something else weird, like renaming it instead of deleting it) when you run the removal command. This is the basic idea of a rootkit, and unlike on Windows, it doesn't require reverse-engineering the system or anything - just a little knowledge of C and a working build toolchain. Really serious rootkits modify the kernel so that system calls which would normally reveal the malware don't. The only way to remove something like that is to either inspect to volume from an uncompromised system, or get closer to the hardware (block-level access, for example, though even that could be subtly edited).
The funny thing is, there's absolutely no reason why the malware author couldn't have simply installed a modified version of/bin/rm that *can't* delete the infection. For that matter, there's also no reason why the name has to be the same on every infection, or why the files need to be visible at all; the.deb installs as root, so you have full authority to do everything up to and including modifying the relevant system calls such that *no* program can see or delete the offending files without editing at the block device level.
If anything, writing rootkits is a lot easier on Linux - the source for every piece of the system, from/bin/rm to the kernel itself, are available. Beats reverse-engineering the system to try and figure out how to hide your malware without alerting the user by breaking something else.
For those thinking about the size of the.deb, that's not an issue either. Just have it install a script (with setuid root) that immediately downloads and installs all the rootkit stuff.
The malware either edits the log or edits the reporting program. Sure, if your tool is obscure then malware authors won't target it, but just like the way that a lot of Windows malware now disables taskmgr.exe and taskkill.exe, if there is a known program that would make it easy to detect the malware, the malware will disable it.
The better malware just makes itself invisible to such software, though that requires reverse-engineering the programs on Windows. On Linux, with the source code easily available, it's much easier - replace the installed versions with a modified binary that hides the infection. This is rootkits 101, here.
The.deb file installs a script with elevated privileges
Package managers run as root. Install scripts in packages run as root. An install script running as root can install or infect software, or modify settings, anywhere on the system. In fact, they can install malware and mark it setuid root so the software's author now has a root-level back door into your computer.
Nothing about this is any harder at all on Linux (or OS X, or OpenBSD for that matter) than on Windows.
Oddly enough, while the Wii has storage, it seems very parsimonious with game patches (or DLC).
Xbox 360 and PS3 both use them widely, however. This isn't terribly surprising, since for original Xbox games (and, in the case of later PS3s, PS2 games) the game must be edited in RAM anyhow, for backward compatibility (and for that matter, the emulation software receives frequent patches as well).
Unless there's another Rhapsody in the world of online music, it's already owned and operated by RealNetworks. Am I missing something, is Real finally en route to a long-overdue end, are they looking to sell Rhapsody, or is the summary just including pointless BS as usual?
I actually tried Rhapsody for a while... it's not bad as a subscriber, but for free online music I'll stick with Pandora, thanks.
Funny you should bring up driver quality; the latest nVidia driver update for my Win7 laptop (9600M GS) broke suspend (to RAM) and an older one (for a Vista laptop, 7600 GO) broke hibernate. I'm used to this kind of garbage with proprietary drivers on Linux, but on Windows I really expect better.
Furthermore, during Vista's beta period, ATI already had solid, functional, stable, and fast drivers. By comparison, at least for the GeForce 7600 GO in my older laptop, it was some 6 months after Vista RTM before I could get a driver that would give me decent performance (the drivers at release ran at about 40% the proper framerate) and features (many things, such as scale but maintain aspect ratio, were unavailable) without using hideously unstable beta drivers (that would crash every time I switched out of a full-screen 3D app). Even once drivers were available, they were initially only for desktop cards (modifying the.INF, or using downloads from laptopvideo2go.com, were workarounds that shouldn't have been required).
I will grant you that if a game is going to have problems with ATI or nVidia graphics, it's more likely to have a problem with ATI. However, in light of nVidia drivers managing to break parts of the operating system, I really don't think they can legitimately be considered better than ATI. Cost for performance, especially in the mid-range, they are also much worse - and in my experience you really don't get what you pay for there.
When you consider what Jailbreak *is* (root-level exploit) I thought this was already fairly well established? Especially when you consider how quickly each successive jailbreak has been released, and how little effort some have required. Say what you will about their histories, but Apple still hasn't gotten the wake-up call regarding how paranoid you really have to be for software security - something MS had thoroughly bashed into its head over the last decade.
Keyboard cache is a good example - turns out that the keystrokes entered during bootup (such as to enter a hard drive decryption passpharse/PIN) remain in memory and can be retrieved after the system has booted. Obviously, this is a problem for things like TrueCrypt, and Microsoft's BitLocker. Except, by the time the vulnerability was revealed, Microsoft had already fixed it. That kind of twisty thinking is what Apple has yet to show any particular knack for.
Um... what was that about upgrade installs? I've certainly used those on non-OEM images. In fact,t he very first thing I do with an OEM image, after booting it to make sure the computer works, is reformat that shit right off.
Mind you, the previous copy of Windows was legit, but it was certainly not OEM and I had no problem using an upgrade copy. Installer checks, sees an old version, then goes ahead and reformats the drive for a clean install.
It's possible that the installer checks to see if your copy is legit, and fails if it isn't. Considering you're getting a discount (upgrade vs. full install) on the basis of having paid for a previous version of the software, this sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
Anecdotal, of course, but I've seen a lot gaming PCs where one part or another has failed (in one case, the power supply went, taking with it the mobo, CPU, and video card - any one of which cost a good chunk as much as an Xbox 360).
In fact, as somebody who got his first gaming console after the release of the Xbox's Jasper chipset (I gamed on PC long before that), neither I nor anybody I know has had a RROD with the new chipset (and only one person in that time with an older one). Don't get me wrong, the first versions undeniably had problems and it's fair to blame MS for them back then, but to suggest (as your post does) that RROD is still substantially more likely than a gaming PC part failure is simply bullshit. Blame a company for its past errors, but don't pretend not to see when they learn from those mistakes.
In other words, it's Microsoft's duty to avoid any platform-specific features (no matter how irrelevant to the core of the language/runtime) simply to avoid making other platforms appear to be "second-class citizens"?
Seriously, the goal here is to make Silverlight useful. The fact that this particular feature for embedding binary objects into a desktop app only works on Windows doesn't make Silverlight any less useful on other platforms - they don't have any support for that behavior to begin with.
Slashdot Mirror
Emphasis mine:
I'm afraid that's incorrect. Copyright law has nothing to do with licenses for use. Copyright, as the name helpfully implies, involves the right to make copies. The copyright holder is the entity with, as you put it, exclusive rights to license that work for others to copy, ender their terms of choice. For example, the copyright license on OS X (as a whole) boils down to "you may not make copies of this software" i.e. you (as somebody other than the copyright holder) have no rights to make copies.
This is the problem that Pystar ran into - they were bundling (modified) copies of OS X (pre-installed on their systems), which they didn't have a license to distribute. The whole thing about Apple's "only use this software on Apple-branded equipment" was irrelevant to the court's final decision, since it was a copyright case and copyright law doesn't apply to usage.
Wow, I'm sorry, but you completely invalidated your entire post right here:
The GPL is not a software license, although it is typically used with software. It most certainly is not an End User License Agreement. You don't have to accept it in order to purchase/receive/download the software. You quite explicitly don't have to accept it in order to use the software.
In fact, you never "accept" the GPL at all, except implicitly when distributing copies (or derived works). It is simply a license to distribute copies of the software (with or without modifications). That's *all* that copyright licenses are: the terms under which you can distribute (possibly modified) copies of something. The GPL's essential terms are thus: you must make the source code available, and you must use the GPL as the copyright license of the copies you distribute. If you want to distribute the software without comitting copyright infringement, you need to adhere to those terms.
EULAs are completely different, and have nothing inherently to do with copyright at all. EULAs start with the assumption that software is licensed - that is, you don't actually own it - and uses that position to claim that you must abide by their "license to use the software" A.K.A. the software's EULA. If you reject the agreement, then your license to use the software is revoked and you are entitled to a refund. If you violate the agreement - that is, agree, then break the terms - then your license to use the software is revoked and you are not entitled to a refund. If you use the software without a license (either due to rejecting the license, or breaking its terms) then you'll putting yourself at risk of a lawsuit for unlicensed use of a licensed product. As for whether the restrictions in the license are even enforcable... well, the lawyers haven't all decided yet.
Note that none of the above paragraph involves copyright in any way. For example, copyright law provides codified legal recourse in the case of copyright infringement, but no such law exists for violation of EULAs. Note also that the EULA, being a *User* license agreement, is irrelevant to somebody who just wants to make copies of the software and distribute them to people. This is where copyright licenses, which are completely distinct from EULAs, come into play.
The copyright license on commercial software is almost always the default one: you're not permitted to make copies at all except for the Fair Use provisions in copyright law. Sometimes you'll find software with both types of license, such as shareware with a EULA stating that you're not permitted to use the software if you attempt to reverse-engineer it, and a copyright license saying you're allowed to distribute copies of the software provided they're completely unmodified. The vast majority of open-source software does not have a EULA.
I'd say you must be new here - this is explained frequently - but your UID argues against that. Seriously, though, if you can't distinguish between a copyright agreement and a user agreement, you have no business in this discussion and your posts herein should be moderated accordingly.
Actually, I kind of prefer Microsoft's approach here (vs. Adobe's). There is a reason that Moonlight is much closer to Silverlight than Gnash is to Flash, despite the latter project having a lot of momentum. Basically, the specifications for creating a Silverlight runtime are freely available. Flash's specs prohibit usage for that reason, forcing developers of an open-source runtime to rely on clean-room reverse engineering. Sure, Adobe provides a native Flash player - in binary format only, for some processors. Moonlight, like Mono from which it is derived, is open source and portable (though not all codecs for it are available open-source).
As for future maintenance, that's just plain silly. Adobe could announce tomorrow that they're not distributing Flash for Linux anymore, and send DMCA takedown notices to anybody still hosting it. They control it entirely. By comparison, anybody can pick up and continue the Moonlight codebase, without Microsoft having anything to do with it.
While most fighters can fly fairly effectively straight up, it's a real strain on the pilots, and the plane is a lot less maneuverable. Coming down from above is certainly possible but only works within a small range - there's an altitude ceiling that defines the highest point you can start from, and there's the ground. At the speeds a fighter flies, especially in a dive, there isn't a lot of room in between. Finally, while you might actually make contact with enemy planes from below or above or something, they had to take off from somewhere and that somewhere is most likely over the horizon. Thus, no matter what altitude they're flying at, the first time you "see" the enemy (you probably don't actually see them, might not even detect them on radar initially) they are approaching your latitude/longitude, meaning maneuvering in north/south and east/west directions.
Deep space is very different. There's no ceiling, and no ground (unless you're in orbit). It's just as efficient to fly in any direction, and no harder on the pilot. There's no horizon either - your detection range is spherical, rather than being essentially a cylinder centered on your location. If you're using radar to scan, you have to do so in three dimensions - the beam doesn't spread out enough to encompass the full area that the enemy could be in.
Hahahahaha wow that's a lot of bullshit in one place. You really should do some research.
Office (or at least the Office applications) have been developed for Apple platforms since before Windows existed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word#History). The release schedule hasn't shown major changes over the decades. I'm having a hard time even taking the rest of your statement seriously considering how incredibly wrong your first sentence is.
While it is true that Microsoft discontinued IE for Mac, they did so only after Apple provided their own, better-integrated browser. If Apple produces and integrates their own Silverlight runtime (which they coudl do, using the Moonlight codebase) I'm sure Microsoft will happily stop spending development resources on providing their own implementation. Until then, not a chance - if MS wants to see Silverlight succeed, they need to be able to compete with Flash in marketshare. Since Flash is installed on something like 97% of computers, and Apple has roughly 10% marketshare, you can bet Silverlight for Mac isn't going away soon.
Microsoft has also historically released software for Linux, Solaris, and other POSIX-based systems. This even extends to GPL kernel modules for Linux. They also provide the codecs needed to use Silverlight (via Moonlight, a project that they have supported the development of) on Linux or other similar systems.
The driver binaries are identical. Absolutely identical; not even the slightest differences. Run a binary comparator over an "official" driver and one from laptopvideo2go (or similar) of the same version number if you don't believe me. In fact, nVidia themselves finally admitted this (after a fashion) when they started including support for laptop cards in their official INF files.
Finally, your point still fails. It was one of nVidia's official drivers, from their website, using the official INF (as I said, they've started including support for the laptop cards), that broke Hibernate functionality. While it would be nice if the computer manufacturers could somehow fix the broken drivers and provide those fixes, the problem still rests squarely with nVidia and their buggy software.
Considering how many small software companies there are who largely survive by contracting for giants (MS prominently among them) I don't really envision MS having any good reason to use this contractor again. There's an awful lot more options out there that haven't publicly embarrassed MS (and cost them a lot of money, no doubt). If anything, I'd expect MS to use this vendor as an object lesson in what happens if you don't follow the terms of the contract (MS has very strict policies regarding open-source code use).
It's not the copyright infringement - it's the embarrassment of a major foreign business. I don't expect the contractor(s) to be shot for it, but that doesn't mean they'll walk away easy. The US is highly dependent on Chinese trade, but that doesn't mean the Chinese aren't dependent on us too. Anything that sends a signal to foreign companies against investing in China is going to be severely frowned upon.
While I don't know how this extends to contractors, internally Microsoft has extremely strict regulations about use of open-source (even if not GPL or other copyleft) code. If it were somebody internal to the company, they'd probably be looking for a new job right now.
For a contractor, breach of contract conditions at the very least, and its unlikely they'll get any more MS contracts in the future. This sucks for them - there are a lot of small companies that make much if not all of their income doing contract jobs specifically for MS - but from Microsoft's perspective, those guys are now an object lesson to all the other small software shops out there, of which there's really no lack.
I still have to take issue with your $600 "for HD TV" though. First, there's absolutely no reason to buy a TV - all the better flatscreen computer monitors have HDMI (or DVI, a simply adapter from HDMI) and if necessary you can get an adapter to output VGA from the Xbox 360 (though at that point the money is probably better spent on a high-quality display). Such a monitor, capable of at least 1920x1080 (1080p, i.e. full HD) will cost well under $300 for 32" if you take the time to shop around a bit (I've seen as low as $240). If you need bigger they're available, although selection decreases. You either need one with speakers or a decent set of external speakers, either of which will add no more than $50 to the price tag. Throw in $6 for a HDMI cable + shipping (they're vastly cheaper online than the hideously overpriced Monster cables you find at electronics stores) and you're talking at worst about $400.
If you're going to use it the same way you do PC gaming - that is, primarily single-player or online - you can get a nice 24" display (with 1080p and HDMI) for under $200. In fact, you may not even need another display - just use the one connected to your PC. It's not like you'll be using the PC at the same time, and you presumably already have a good monitor and adequate audio setup. For that matter, it's probable that such a system will be adequate for 2 people (you mentioned buying only one additional controller) provided the space its in has room for a second chair.
Modern netbooks mostly use hyperthreaded processors. While not quite dual-core, they're still a lot better for multitasking.
You can get true dual-core systems in that form factor, but not for netbook prices.
Out of curiosity, exactly what Nokia device is Apple (or allthingsd.com) claiming to be a copy of the iPhone? Nokia has had touchscreen-based (though not multi-touch) devices, both with and without phone chips, since before the existence of the iPhone, and while most if not all such devices could play music, none of them (in my experience) could be said to have copied the iPhone's or iPod's user interface. Many of these devices have also had installable applications available, though again I don't know of any that use the iPhone's App Store model.
If there's a Nokia device out there that is a copy of the iPhone's "design and user interface", I'd love to see it. The closest thing that comes to mind is the N900, which runs Maemo Linux, and bears considerably little superficial resemblance to the iPhone.
While I haven't used UNetBootin, the method you describe does in fact work quite well for making Windows install/recovery partitions (and might work for Linux with some tweaking).
Use diskpart.exe to format the flashdrive, and mark the partition as active (if you want to, you can use multiple partitions, though generally that's not neccessary). Then, either mount the ISO, burn it and read the disk, or extract its contents (I use 7zip to extract; it's very easy to use). Copy the contents to the flashdrive - you'll see instructions online to use xcopy or robocopy, but honestly just using Windows Explorer works fine.
Congratulations, you now have a bootable flashdrive. I've not tried to get a Linux bootloader working, but it works flawlessly for Windows.
Indeed. In fact, since things like rm (or for that matter, glibc) are open-source, it's a lot easier for an attacker to develop a modified version that simply can't see the malware, or fails with a "file not found" (or does something else weird, like renaming it instead of deleting it) when you run the removal command. This is the basic idea of a rootkit, and unlike on Windows, it doesn't require reverse-engineering the system or anything - just a little knowledge of C and a working build toolchain. Really serious rootkits modify the kernel so that system calls which would normally reveal the malware don't. The only way to remove something like that is to either inspect to volume from an uncompromised system, or get closer to the hardware (block-level access, for example, though even that could be subtly edited).
The funny thing is, there's absolutely no reason why the malware author couldn't have simply installed a modified version of /bin/rm that *can't* delete the infection. For that matter, there's also no reason why the name has to be the same on every infection, or why the files need to be visible at all; the .deb installs as root, so you have full authority to do everything up to and including modifying the relevant system calls such that *no* program can see or delete the offending files without editing at the block device level.
If anything, writing rootkits is a lot easier on Linux - the source for every piece of the system, from /bin/rm to the kernel itself, are available. Beats reverse-engineering the system to try and figure out how to hide your malware without alerting the user by breaking something else.
For those thinking about the size of the .deb, that's not an issue either. Just have it install a script (with setuid root) that immediately downloads and installs all the rootkit stuff.
You're forgetting the very obvious third option:
The malware either edits the log or edits the reporting program. Sure, if your tool is obscure then malware authors won't target it, but just like the way that a lot of Windows malware now disables taskmgr.exe and taskkill.exe, if there is a known program that would make it easy to detect the malware, the malware will disable it.
The better malware just makes itself invisible to such software, though that requires reverse-engineering the programs on Windows. On Linux, with the source code easily available, it's much easier - replace the installed versions with a modified binary that hides the infection. This is rootkits 101, here.
Um, why wasn't it? To quote the summary:
Package managers run as root. Install scripts in packages run as root. An install script running as root can install or infect software, or modify settings, anywhere on the system. In fact, they can install malware and mark it setuid root so the software's author now has a root-level back door into your computer.
Nothing about this is any harder at all on Linux (or OS X, or OpenBSD for that matter) than on Windows.
Oddly enough, while the Wii has storage, it seems very parsimonious with game patches (or DLC).
Xbox 360 and PS3 both use them widely, however. This isn't terribly surprising, since for original Xbox games (and, in the case of later PS3s, PS2 games) the game must be edited in RAM anyhow, for backward compatibility (and for that matter, the emulation software receives frequent patches as well).
Unless there's another Rhapsody in the world of online music, it's already owned and operated by RealNetworks. Am I missing something, is Real finally en route to a long-overdue end, are they looking to sell Rhapsody, or is the summary just including pointless BS as usual?
I actually tried Rhapsody for a while... it's not bad as a subscriber, but for free online music I'll stick with Pandora, thanks.
Funny you should bring up driver quality; the latest nVidia driver update for my Win7 laptop (9600M GS) broke suspend (to RAM) and an older one (for a Vista laptop, 7600 GO) broke hibernate. I'm used to this kind of garbage with proprietary drivers on Linux, but on Windows I really expect better.
Furthermore, during Vista's beta period, ATI already had solid, functional, stable, and fast drivers. By comparison, at least for the GeForce 7600 GO in my older laptop, it was some 6 months after Vista RTM before I could get a driver that would give me decent performance (the drivers at release ran at about 40% the proper framerate) and features (many things, such as scale but maintain aspect ratio, were unavailable) without using hideously unstable beta drivers (that would crash every time I switched out of a full-screen 3D app). Even once drivers were available, they were initially only for desktop cards (modifying the .INF, or using downloads from laptopvideo2go.com, were workarounds that shouldn't have been required).
I will grant you that if a game is going to have problems with ATI or nVidia graphics, it's more likely to have a problem with ATI. However, in light of nVidia drivers managing to break parts of the operating system, I really don't think they can legitimately be considered better than ATI. Cost for performance, especially in the mid-range, they are also much worse - and in my experience you really don't get what you pay for there.
Thunderbird can literally nuke your e-mails
Great, so Thunderbird has WMDs. Okay... so when are we invading Mozilla headquarters?
When you consider what Jailbreak *is* (root-level exploit) I thought this was already fairly well established? Especially when you consider how quickly each successive jailbreak has been released, and how little effort some have required. Say what you will about their histories, but Apple still hasn't gotten the wake-up call regarding how paranoid you really have to be for software security - something MS had thoroughly bashed into its head over the last decade.
Keyboard cache is a good example - turns out that the keystrokes entered during bootup (such as to enter a hard drive decryption passpharse/PIN) remain in memory and can be retrieved after the system has booted. Obviously, this is a problem for things like TrueCrypt, and Microsoft's BitLocker. Except, by the time the vulnerability was revealed, Microsoft had already fixed it. That kind of twisty thinking is what Apple has yet to show any particular knack for.
Um... what was that about upgrade installs? I've certainly used those on non-OEM images. In fact,t he very first thing I do with an OEM image, after booting it to make sure the computer works, is reformat that shit right off.
Mind you, the previous copy of Windows was legit, but it was certainly not OEM and I had no problem using an upgrade copy. Installer checks, sees an old version, then goes ahead and reformats the drive for a clean install.
It's possible that the installer checks to see if your copy is legit, and fails if it isn't. Considering you're getting a discount (upgrade vs. full install) on the basis of having paid for a previous version of the software, this sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
Anecdotal, of course, but I've seen a lot gaming PCs where one part or another has failed (in one case, the power supply went, taking with it the mobo, CPU, and video card - any one of which cost a good chunk as much as an Xbox 360).
In fact, as somebody who got his first gaming console after the release of the Xbox's Jasper chipset (I gamed on PC long before that), neither I nor anybody I know has had a RROD with the new chipset (and only one person in that time with an older one). Don't get me wrong, the first versions undeniably had problems and it's fair to blame MS for them back then, but to suggest (as your post does) that RROD is still substantially more likely than a gaming PC part failure is simply bullshit. Blame a company for its past errors, but don't pretend not to see when they learn from those mistakes.
In other words, it's Microsoft's duty to avoid any platform-specific features (no matter how irrelevant to the core of the language/runtime) simply to avoid making other platforms appear to be "second-class citizens"?
Seriously, the goal here is to make Silverlight useful. The fact that this particular feature for embedding binary objects into a desktop app only works on Windows doesn't make Silverlight any less useful on other platforms - they don't have any support for that behavior to begin with.